


Captain America

by Nonoyoulou



Series: oc/reader through the MC universe [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 1940s, Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - 1940s, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Blood and Injury, Captain America: The First Avenger, Cheating, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff, Howard Stark/reader - Freeform, Jealousy, Minor Original Character(s), Mutant Reader?, New World, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Racism, Reader Knows, Reader is black, Reader is not american, Reader-Insert, Science Experiments, Segregation, Slow Burn, Spoiler Alert - Freeform, Super Soldier Serum, Unhappy Ending, World War II, eventually spy reader, part1, reader gets swooped into the marvel universe, reader is from an alternate universe, reader knows all about the marvel movies, well it's not really the end of the story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2020-10-09 03:50:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 36,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20486513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nonoyoulou/pseuds/Nonoyoulou
Summary: Nélé (reader) is a French young adult woman who lived in Canada. Majoring in art, she lived a pretty average life alone.But it all changed the day she got sucked into the MCU instead of getting hit in a car accident.There, Nélé realised that she'll probably be stuck for a long time...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Just wanna precise here that, there might be a little self-insert in the story. 'cause a fangirl gotta please herself too! ;)
> 
> But in all seriousness, Nélé is still supposed to be "reader" I just gave her a name and a background. I also decided to not give her a detailed physical description and most of the time I'll try to not be too specific with her likings.

"Oh, and here, I also brought some Ventolin as well."  
"Some? Mom, you brought way too much of it! I haven't had any asthma attacks since I was eight."  
"Dear, we never know with this kind of thing, it can come back anytime, now just take it will you!"  
Nélé just sighed, her parents had gotten back from their annual trip from France, and her mother always brought back with her as much herbs and medicines as she could. And now, was handing as much as she could to her daughter.

That evening, Nélé stepped out of her parent's house with her hands full of bags filled with medicines, there was a lot of traffic that day, so Nélé had parked her car pretty far.  
But she had only made a few steps out of the house that her phone was already ringing. As expected, it was her friend, Jade.

"Hey, girl!" the voice slurred through the phone, Nélé swore she could hear her friend smirking through the phone.  
" You ready to go out and have some fun with me tonight? Remember, you promised! "

"Hey, Jade, yes I'm doing good! I just got out of my parent's house, literally just came out and you already remind me that I'm about to do something I'm definitely gonna regret. Yes, I remember."

"Good. Cause you're coming with me whether you want it or not. I've got the promise recorded right here in my phone so no backing out, even if you feel like you're gonna regret it. I don't care, you're coming."

"but-"  
"huh huh I already know what you're gonna say and I don't wanna hear it! " her friend sighed through the phone and went on.  
"Nélé, I know you're not really fond of the idea of going, but you're twenty-one, you gotta live a little! You can't just decline every party invitations you get just to avoid one person! "

"huh yes, I can, I've got better things I can do instead!"  
"Like what? "  
"well, there's still this art project I'm working on."  
"you finished it yesterday. And you already visited your parents."  
"Well... well I could watch a movie marathon!"

"Oh hell nah, girl, if you tell me you're going to watch your marvel movies and company again I swear we're gonna have a problem!"  
"Well, you didn't mind watching some of them with me."

"And you know I only watched them with you because that mister Captain America of yours is freakin' hot. Come on darling, I know it'll be hard to ignore Liam because he's part of our friend's circle, but you won't be alone with anyways, I'll be there to make sure of it."  
"Fine, but I really don't want to see, him, Jade. "  
"Besides, is it really such a bad thing if you were to give the guy a chance."  
"huh yes,, he's a real douche."

Nélé new she was being childish, but she really couldn't stand the guy. 

Liam was a well-known player who was majoring in law. The boy was pretty cute. But, even if he and Nélé were both parts of the same small group of friends, they never really shared anything in common. 

In fact, Liam pretty much used to ignore her most of the time except for a few uncomfortable exchanges.  
Well, Liam wasn't really interested in her either, she was pretty different from the kind of girl he was used to "hang out" with.  
First of all, Nélé wasn't really shaped like a model, she didn't seem to share the same taste in music as he did, he couldn't care less about art while she was majoring in it, they had different points of few on life and, well, nothing seemed like these two would ever want to be anything more than acquaintances.

Unfortunately for Nélé, it all changed when one day he accidentally walked one the girls hyping each other up on some bouncy music.  
Jade had organised a small dinner for a few friends to attend and only Nélé and a few other of her girlfriends were there, and he was actually the first guest to arrive.  
He was greeted by the girls dancing and bouncing their hips to the music, what he didn't expect was to see Nélé enjoying herself in the middle of the group.  
Ever since that dreadful day, the boy never ceased to try to "befriend" in some times ways that were overly flirty much to Nélé's discomfort.

It's been months now. 

The boy still won't stop. 

"I think you're overreacting, girl. I think it's cute that he's trying so hard. " Jade continued. 

"Okay, so first. That guy had absolutely no interest in me until he saw my booty cheeks shaking. And we've known him for over a year.  
Second, You suddenly taking his side is definitely not reassuring for me. Are you sure you still want me to go to your little party?  
Shit, it's raining..." Nélé mumbled as she started to trot her way to her car.

"That not it booboo. I'm still going to stay by your side tonight, don't worry... it's just that, I was thinking it wouldn't be such a bad thing for you to get yourself a boyfriend..."

"Hugh really Jade? Just cause you haven't seen me dating, you decide that me hooking up with the only guy that is not looking for a girlfriend isn't such a bad idea?"  
They both chucked at Nélé's words before she went on.  
"Don't worry, mom, I'll get myself a boy-"

Her sentence was interrupted the loud sound of a car honking.  
Everything happened so in a matter of seconds.  
As she was in the middle of crossing the road, the traffic light abruptly turned red, and a car was heading her way full speed.  
It tried to brake in time, but the floor damped with the rain was making it impossible for the driver to stop in time.

Nélé didn't really get the time to react either.  
Her leg seemed to have gotten stuck on the spot. She  
only managed to protect herself with her arms while clutching onto her bags and phone tighter.  
She clenched her eyes shut, bracing herself for the impact.  
The screeching of the tire was heard.  
.  
.  
.

"Watch out!"


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> she thought she get hit but instead she got confused

Nélé braced herself for the hit, but it never came.  
She reluctantly opened her eyes to see what was happening, slightly removing her arms from her face, but she only could catch a glimpse of headlights before she got tackled on the ground with a big thud.

"watch out!" was all she heard before her hip violently collided with the ground.  
" Are, are you alright, ma'am?" a deep voice rung in Nélé ears, but she didn't seem to react to it.  
When she opened her eyes, she was facing a scenery that totally different from the crosswalk she was on a few minutes ago.  
The old building surrounding her were now looking newer despise the dirtiness. The street looked busy, people were hurrying mainly because of the rain, and everyone was dressed in an odd vintage-looking fashion.  
It was as if they were back in the fifties or something.   
Moreover, even the cars looked they were all model, and yet, everything looked ...new.

Nélé was pulled out of her dazed as she felt two hands shaking her arms lightly.

"Ma'am, ma'am! Are you alright? Can, can ya hear me ?" the panting voice belonged to a blond young man, with piercing blue eyes.

She quickly blinked a few times before answering the man still confused by the totally confused by her surroundings.  
"I...I think I'm alright, thank you. Wait, sir, are you okay??"  
She was physically mainly okay, her hip hurt, but that was simply because of the impact of it hitting the ground, she might also have scratched her arm, but nothing too serious.  
On the other hand, her saviour seemed to be the one that was not alright.  
His panting had now taken the form of hyperventilation, his face looked pale, and he was drenched from the pouring rain.   
The man tried to reassure her, but even talking turned out to be harder than what he anticipated, as his words were riddled with coughs and gasps. 

"it's, it's alright ma'am it's just... small attack, it'll pass..."  
"hang on a minute, I think I have something that will help. "

Nélé quickly ruffled through her bags suddenly happy that her mom had provided her with her own little pharmacy, and pulled out her inhaler, preparing it as fast as she could.   
Once it was ready, she put one hand reassuring hand on the back of the slim young man to help him straighten up, and held the reliever in front of his mouth with the other.  
The blond just looked at her and at what she was showing him with  
a confused look on his face.

"Okay, I'm, hum, I'm sorry if it sounds weird but, I'm gonna need you to inhale in the this, the moment I press onto this button, it will help you to get better, okay?"

His blue eyes stared at her frowning for a few seconds before he simply gave her a small nod. It wasn't like he had many other choices, and the situation already felt embarrassing enough as it was.  
Nélé smiled at his positive response and warned that she would press on the count to three, which she did.  
The first puff had surprised him a little, but Nélé was quick to reassure him telling that he was alright and that the feeling was to totally normal while patting his back gently with free her hand.  
They repeated the actions a few times, puff air into him, trying to take deep breaths together, her hand still on his back, and eventually, his breathing returned to a somewhat normal state.

The blond man closed his eyes taking in one last big breath, before lifting his face, to thank the woman who had just helped him.  
" Thank you, for that, ma'am."  
"No, don't mention it, it's the least I could do. you saved my life after all. "Nélé smiled sweetly.

They stayed there sitting on the ground for a short while, both of them feeling confused by what just happened.  
But Nélé was the first one to break the silence.  
"Hum, we probably shouldn't stay in the rain like this." She stood up nervously tried to brush the dirt off her clothing before extending her hand to the man that was equally soaked and dirty.   
He gratefully grasped the lady's hand, to stand up as well, at the same time, he looked at the woman in front of him properly for the first time.

Her appearance was totally out of the ordinary. She was wearing a white t-shirt, which was now stained by dirty rainwater, was even clinging onto her torso. The t-shirt was tucked into a pair of high waisted pants, the texture of it looked like jeans, but they were totally clinging onto her legs drawing her silhouette a little too well (probably thanks to the water), that alone was enough to make the young lad blush. 

However, what certainly marked him the most was the shoes she was wearing, laced and white, well, now dirty brown, and their shape was nothing like what he had ever seen. 

His eyebrows frowned, and he quickly looked up to look at the face woman who was facing him (still holding his hand by the way).   
She was pretty. Really pretty, with deep brown eyes and full lips, her hair was composed of an impressive amount of long braids.  
She appeared to be an African American women yet, her accent seemed to be indicating otherwise.  
The young man was suddenly pulled out of his daze by the sound of her clearing her voice. They were both starting to attract the attention of the passing people, who were looking at them oddly.  
He quickly let go of her hand and went to grab the bags that were lying on the ground before handing them to her. 

"Thank you, for this, and for saving my life a few moments ago... thank you very much. I'm extremely grateful."

"No, don't mention it, I guess we can say we're even since you helped me out right after, ma'am. "  
they both chuckled a bit awkwardly before he went on, "well, you seem fine but I think you should still go get yourself check just in case."  
Nélé couldn't help but lift an eyebrow with a small smile on her face. "Shouldn't you go as well, sir? This attack seemed pretty bad, besides staying in the rain like this doesn't do us any help either..."

"Nah, 's alright ma'am it happens more often than id like to, but it was not the worst have been through. Very well, then." on these words, the man nod to her and reluctantly left toward the opposite direction.

Great. Now, Nélé was left to her own demise, completely lost among people who were looking at her funny.

"If you don't mind, I happen to live a few blocks away. Maybe, maybe, if you don't mind, would you like to come over? At least until the rain passes. I don't mean to be suspicious or anything, but you looked lost, and you don't look like form here either so-"

"I 'd be delighted! I, I mean I would really appreciate it. "

"Great then, it's this way. May I?" 

He motion for her to give him one of the bags she was holding and went on their way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end. 
> 
> Nah I'm just kidding


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> welp.

Nélé and the kind stranger were both standing in front of the door of his apartment. The walk to their destination was indeed quick, but the sudden change of scenery was pretty striking. Going from the busy and lively streets to get an environment that was much poorer and deteriorated.

He gave an apologetic smile to the brown skin woman behind him before fumbling for his keys, suddenly feeling self-conscious.   
"I have to apologise in advance, ma'am. Unfortunately, my place is not really from the nicest building insight, and it may be a bit old and shabby. "

Nélé was so taken by what was going on around her, she hadn't realised her facial expression could cause the man to misunderstand.   
She couldn't care less about whether the place he lives in was shabby or anything, what was scaring her was that no matter how hard she tried to convince herself, she was definitely not in Canada and in Montreal even less.

By now, Nélé was sincerely hoping that she had actually gotten herself hit by the car. And all of this would just be the result of her getting hit so violently by it, that she was currently under the effect of a weird comatic dream.

"Oh no, really, I don't mind! I was just lost in thoughts and- you see so much happened in such a small amount of time, that I'm still feeling a bit shaken bit it all. " 

Well, it was partly true, anyway.

"Oh, I see then. My name is Steve, by the way, Steve rogers. 'Figured I might as well tell ya my name before you get in the house of a complete stranger." He clumsily tried to joke while opening the door and putting himself aside to let her in.

Your name is what now? Nélé was shocked. If she was still doubting it earlier, she was sure now, she's gotten hit by that car. Pretty darn hard.

"Nélé, Nélé Louzolo" she replied after blinking a few times and finally getting inside the flat.  
Once inside, Mr Rogers directly went in a room of the place, to most probably get some towels. 

In the meantime, Nélé was standing in the middle of the apartment, taking in her surroundings.   
The apartment was indeed old and maybe a little shabby looking but, the place was clean regardless.   
She couldn't see much from where she was standing. The living room seemed to be also used as a bedroom and was opening to the kitchen, which possessed three doors, in which one of them steve went through, so she could only assume that it was where the bathroom may belong. 

The place didn't contain any sort decorations other than a couple of pictures here and there.   
Nélé couldn't help but spot that some art supplies that were lying on a small table along with an easel stand in the corner of the room.

All of this felt a little bit too familiar to the woman. Nélé was not stupid, she's read lots of fanfictions before, so by now, she was getting a small idea of what could be going on.   
She really hoped that she was actually in the middle of a dream, perhaps because of the accident.  
But it all just felt too real to her.

She needed to make sure of it.

"hum, excuse me... Mr Rogers?"  
"Just call me Steve" the dark blond-haired man answered while handing her a fresh towel as he came out.

"Right, Steve then. Then, please call me Nélé as well," she answered gratefully taking it to start drying her hair.  
After a deep breath, she closed her eyes asked.

"S-steve? Hum, I know I'll probably sound crazy, but right now... we are the 17th of April 2019 in Montreal city, right ?" 

Now it was Steve turn to look at her funny, "...I'm afraid not ma'am. We're on the 3rd of May, 1940, Brooklyn, in New York City."  
The minute these words left the man's lips, Nélé felt her legs giving out, and she collapsed on the floor.  
"God, Nélé are you alright ??"

She was not, Nélé was in a full panic.   
"It can't be! This can't be right, how? How! This is a dream, it has to be a dream!! "   
Hot tears were rolling down her face, her breath itched, and her trembling hand grasped her hair.  
She wanted it to be a dream, she really did, but the pain in chest was telling her otherwise. It wasn't a dream, Nélé was sure of it. 

She was trapped back in time, better yet she was trapped in a friggin' movie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was little more shorter than the others... oh well!


	4. Chapter 4

"Oh my god, how did this even happen in the first place! How am I supposed to get back home?! I-"  
"Hey, hey, hey! Breathe. It' okay, everything is gonna be alright just, just calm down first then we can talk it out. "

Steve help Nélé settle on his armchair and kneeled in front of her waiting for her to calm down.  
"Now, do you think you can explain to me what's going on?" he asked, taking one of her hand to reassure her.

"You're gonna think I'm crazy..." Nélé replied now wiping her tears with her free hand.  
"I will not, you have my word." he tried to give her a reassuring smile, which apparently was successful.

"I don't really know to explain this... Steve, I- I'm not from here..."  
The man chuckled "I figured much..."  
"No, I'm serious. I truly am not from here, I'm from the future! Before all of this happened, I was still in 2019. And, and I got proof of what I'm saying! In my bags-"  
"It's alright." the blond cut her in, "I believe you."

"You what now? Mr Rogers, I'm being serious here, this is not a joke or something."  
"I know, and I believe you. In fact, this would explain lots of things."

He really did believed her. At first, he didn't want to admit it but, when he saved from getting hit by the car, Steve really did see her appear out of nowhere. His brain just brushed it off because of how weird the situation was.   
"Well, it sure explains the duds your wearing. It also explains how you got that thing used to help me earlier..."

"Steve, what do I do? I don't know how I got here, nor how to go home, or if I ever will be able to..."  
Nélé sighed, burying her face in her hands, she honestly had no idea of what to do.  
Was she stuck here until the end of the story? And what would that mean? Until he gets put in the ice? Until he ends being an old man ? what would happen to her then? Hell, what would happen to her in the meantime? And how would she get back to her own world did she have to die for that?

"maybe... you could stay here?"  
"what?"  
"I mean, it can be just for now, but since you don't have a place to stay and we have no idea how long you will stay here... In our era, I mean. I don't mind you living here for a while. "

Nélé just stared into the man's eyes. Was he serious? He was too kind for his own good... She could be someone trying to take advantage of him, or a murderer or a spy, or just crazy, (she knows that in his place, she would just think that ).  
Yet this little man was ready to give a placet to stay? How precious can someone be...

"I don't want to impose... What if I'm stuck in here for years... I can't even help you with anything, I don't have any money, let alone a job. Heck, I ain't even got a valid ID here..."

"maybe I can help you that... I... I know somewhere I could get you one..."

She was baffled, "You don't even know me! Why are you willing to do this for me? How do you know if you can even trust me, Mr Rogers?"  
"First, it's Steve, not Mr Rogers, we already went through that. Second, I trust my guts, and they're telling me to help ya. "

"Your guts are either really naive or really dumb, Mr Rogers. I mean, Steve... Thank you."

"Don't mention it. Now, I don't know about ya miss, but I think getting changed into some dry clothes wouldn't do us any harm, would it? Something to eat also sound pretty appropriate. What do you think? "  
"huh, sure I'm afraid I don't have anything else to wear though..." Now that he mentioned it, she was starting to feel cold.

"Just leave it to me, I'm sure I'll find something that'll fit you... "  
"Thank you..." Nélé replied earnestly with a small smile making its way on her face.

"You're welcome" Steve stood up to fetch some clean cloth for her and himself. "Here. You can change in the bathroom. It's the door on the right by the kitchen, you can't miss it."  
Nélé laughed lightly taking the clothes that were handed to her and headed to the bathroom.

Surprisingly, the shirt turned out to be a little too big for her, so she had to fold its sleeves. The pants were also a bit long, but her thighs filled them just right.   
When she stepped out of the restroom, Steve had already changed into different clothing and was warming up some soup for them. He indicated her to take a seat at the table behind him assuring her that dinner would be ready any minutes.

They both took their meal in a sort of awkward silence, and Nélé proposed to help him with dishes which they washed together.

"You can sleep in the room other there, it's a guest room that is usually used by my friend when he's too sauced to get back to his folks' house."  
"I see, I'll go on ahead then. Goodnight, Steve."  
"Goodnight."  
"Oh, and Steve?"  
"yes, Nélé?"  
"Thank you. For everything."  
Steve gave her a soft smile, "It's always a pleasure, ma'am."

She gave him one last smile as well before disappearing behind the door.

Steve went to bed as well, but it took him a while before he was finally able to fall asleep. Lots of things had happened, and he had to admit that everything that had occurred today was still a bit hard to believe.   
He didn't know if he did the right thing by deciding to help a woman he just met a few hours ago. But Steve felt that if he didn't, he'd regret it all his life.

Tomorrow was surely promising to be a busy day.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all, I'm so sorry I took so long to post anything, but I got really sick for weeks to the point I couldn't even write at all. Long story short: I ended up in the hospital for a few days. And it sucked.
> 
> But I am better now, hooray !! Unfortunately, I missed two weeks of school so I had to catch up I still have too but I feel better enough to start writing again, so I hope you enjoy it. ^^

The next morning, Nélé was woken up by the sound of people arguing.  
She was surprised that she had been able to sleep at all, but she guessed it was all thanks to Steve. She felt like she was not alone in this mess.

It didn't take ages for Nélé to put two and two together. She was able to identify them.

She quickly recognised Bucky's voice who was being shushed by desperately by steve. Nélé didn't even need to come out of her room to listen to what was going on.

James Buchanan Barns was not happy. At all. He'd just spent a long night because a "little" get together organised by one of his friends ended up lasting the whole damn night, so he hoped he'd be able to catch some sleep at his best friend's place like he always does, then maybe he'd go back home, later in the day.  
He didn't have work today anyway.

When he got to Steve's place, this one was already awake, that was normal. What was not normal though, was the lad behaviours when Bucky came into the apartment.  
First, the boy was surprised to see him showing up as if it was the first time he came unannounced, this was odd.  
But things became even weirder when Steve tried to stop him from going to the bedroom and attempt to have him sleep on his bedding instead.  
That was weird... steve always sends him off to the room cause he didn't want him stinking his drapes with the stench of alcohol.  
He was hiding something.

"What is it with you today, Steve? If I didn't know you better, I'd say you're hiding a girl in there!"  
He wholeheartedly jocked but to his surprise, the blond froze at his words. 

There was a moment of silence. Then the two of rushed to the bedroom door like madmen. Unfortunately, Bucky was faster and stronger, so after a little bit of silent wrestling, they almost fell through the door.  
And to his shock, there was a woman in the sheets, and she appeared be wearing Steve's shirt too. Oh, this one is gonna be good.

At the point, Steve just went back to slump in his armchair, bracing himself for what was coming for him.  
He knew that neither of them will like what they will hear from the other.  
Bucky closed the door of the quietly sleeping woman before launching himself at his best ruffling his hair.

"well, dang buddy! I didn't know you had it in you! What the hell happened to the I'm waiting for the "right one" huh, you punk! Wait, did you get yourself a sweetheart, and you did tell me! I'm shocked, Stevie!!"

"It's not like that...Bucky, you're choking me!" the poor blond tried to get out of his friend grip.

"Whacha mean not like that? Steve, don't tell me you got yourself a call-girl?! Buddy I already told you- "

"It's not like that!" Steve cut in a little too loud shutting up the brown-haired guy. Now his friend was looking at him baffled. Steve just sighed.  
"Just, let me explain..."  
And he did, from how he saw this young woman appear in the middle of the street to how she ended up sleeping in his bed.  
For a minute, Bucky didn't say anything, but then he exploded.

"Did you lose your mind ?! "  
"Shhhh! you're gonna wake her up!"  
Fun fact he actually started yelling in a whispering tone.

"Don't you shush me, Steven, you're telling me that you let a total stranger take advantage of you, again!? Steve, that a woman is, at best, an immigrant trying to take advantage of you, or, at worst, a spy for the Russian trying to infiltrate the country, did it ever cross your mind ?! For god sake, Steve! Better yet, she could just be crazy!"

Steve sighed, he could get where his best was coming from.  
"I know it sounds crazy Buck, but... I believe her... All of the things she used really looked like it came from the future, and the way she was dressed was really... strange too. Besides, she really seemed sincere, I... I want to believe her..."

"This is madness..." The brunet ran his hands through his hair and then rubbed his face.  
"Did you, did you at least run through her stuff to see if she had anything to prove that she's not a threat?"

"No, I didn't I-"  
"That's it, that her bag over there, right?" He replied, pointing his head at the handbag on the ground, before rushing to it.  
"Buck, don't!"  
"The hell I will!" He did. As he ran through her bag, he did fall on a bunch of weird things, a packet of pills with the word gum on it, lots of receipts that that dated from 2018 and 2019, a French passport and a Canadian driving licence.  
But everything was so different and strange, the passport had a leather cover with golden writing on it the pages looked like it was in some sort of plastic paper. The driving licence was even stranger, it was just a piece of plastic and looked like a toy.  
It was when he pulled out a handful of pads and tampons that Nélé barged out the room to snatch her stuff from Bucky.

"Okay, that's enough searching."  
"You were listening to us ?! Steve see she can't be trusted!"  
"It was hard not to hear you even if I wanted to! It just felt awkward to come out in the middle of your argument... I didn't think you'd go through my things without my permission, though!" Nélé answered glaring at the man, trying to put her things back in her bag, feeling embarrassed.

"You're just being suspicious to me, woman. What're those plastic thingies you're hiding, anyway?"  
Nélé just mumbled the answer.  
"Speak louder woman," Bucky said, annoyed.  
"I SAID, they're tampons and pads for menstruations periods! Why? Need some??" Nélé sassed back, of all the things from the future he could have asked about, it just had to be, that.  
The three of them remained in uncomfortable silence before Steve put an end to it by clearing his throat and kneeling next to Nélé.

"Sorry about that, that punk here doesn't mean any arm he's just looking out for me."  
"I guess I can understand him... If I was in his shoes, I'd already have tried to call the cops already..." she chuckled lightly. The two of them smiled softly to each other, to reassure each other maybe, to what Bucky just scoffed crossing his arms.  
Nélé then turned to the taller guy who was pouting in front of her.  
"Okay, I think we started off the wrong foot you and I... And I'm sorry I kind of snapped at you like that earlier... shouldn't have done that. can we start over?" 

Nélé stood up and held out her hand to Bucky as an attempt to make amend with him.  
Bucky just stared at her hand for a few seconds and looked at the girl's the eyes before speaking. 

"what's your name?" His arms were still crossed. Bucky hadn't start trusting the woman in front of him, but Steve wanted to trust her, and he at least wanted to believe in his best friend.  
So he decided to give in. Just a little.

Really? "What's my name?" Nélé just looked at him raising an eyebrow, the boy just went through her personal stuff, inspected her passport driving licence and everything, and that's the thing he came out with?

Nélé had the feeling that the two of them might not be able to get along, but when she c  
glanced at Steve and saw the expecting look in his face, she knew that they'll have to make an effort. So just this once, she gave in. Just a little.

"Nélé, Nélé Louzolo."  
"My name is James Buchanan Barn. But my friends call me Bucky."  
The brunet finally stood up and shook the ebony woman's hand with a smirk which was returned by Nélé.  
Steve released a breath he didn't know he had been holding.

"So. What now?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PS: If you guys read or see any writing errors please do tell me ! I'm here to learn! Thank you!!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nélé and Steve go out for shopping and she gets hit the reality of his time.

"So. What now?" 

Nélé looked at the boys as she released Bucky's hand. She sincerely had no clue what she was supposed to do now. She was pretty sure that she stuck in some sort of alternate movie universe, and if that was the case, then Nélé knew that she was probably not going to go home anytime soon...  
But, she could also really be in a coma and the middle of a weird fangirl dream. Yep, she still hoped it was the case.

"Well, if you're gonna stay here, you're gonna need to be useful, there's no way I'm gon' let take advantage of my best friend."

Steve wanted to react to the rude words of his friend, but Nélé beat him to it.

"I don't intend on being a burden. I'll help any way I can, I can cook, clean, and I'll even find a job if I can."  
Nélé was frowning at Bucky while she was answering, he was looking down on her, she didn't like it.

"And how are you gonna do that, you don't even have legit ID- "  
"I can help with that."  
Nélé and Bucky both turned their heads in Steve's direction.

"It would be a fake one, and it would take a while to get it done but, if you're not against it, I can get you one." 

"You can't be serious?!" Bucky exclaimed.  
"Oh, but I am."  
Nélé walked over to steve to look at him the eyes, with a concerned expression on her face. She clearly did not want to have him to get into trouble because of her.

"Are sure about that, I'm pretty sure that's illegal, I don't want you to get in trouble because of me, Steve. "

Steve could feel his heart skip a bit to how close she was to him, and he was pretty sure that he was going to be blushing but seeing how worried Nélé was for him when she was the one in a dire situation just made him want to help her even more.

"Yeah, I know someone that can get it done."  
"But-"  
"No buts," He took one of her hands in his," I said I was going to help you, and that's what I'm gonna do. But right now what we need to do is to get you some clothes as well as other essential things you might need to live here. Tomorrow I'll deal with your ID."

"Thank you..." Nélé didn't know what else to say. This man just met her yesterday, he didn't know her. And yet, he was ready to do so much for her...  
It made her heart swell.

"Well, I'm gonna leave first," Bucky said interrupting their moment.  
"Not that I don't wanna stay with you guys, but if I don't get home now, pretty I'm gonna get it from my folks. So, bye."  
On these words, the man grabbed his belongings and left.

Steve and Nélé got ready to leave not long after that. Steve had let her use the bathroom so she could wash her face and lend her some clothes as well.  
The rest of the day was pretty busy, Steve took her many little shops of Brooklyn, making sure to buy everything she'd need to be comfortable enough once they'd get home.  
Nélé always made sure the products they'd get were cheap as possible. They also went to buy some outfits for her, she couldn't live off Steve closet after all. He could only afford to buy two simple dresses and a pair of tennis for her, but to Nélé, he had already done way more than enough.

The day would have ended on a pretty good note if it wasn't for something Nélé had noticed while they were out.  
While it was nice to see New York from the past, the building, and how lively it was, there one thing that hit Nélé pretty hard.

It wasn't the contrast between the well-maintained parts of the city versus the poorer ones.  
It was the looks. The people around were her giving her looks of disgust. Whenever she was talking, laughing or even walking too close to Steve, Nélé could feel glares burning holes onto her. 

She had almost forgotten how people that looked like her were treated back in the forties. She already had a hard time dealing with the racism from the future, how in the world will she be able to deal with one that was seen as "normal" by society.

As they arrived home, Steve had noticed that something was wrong with her. The excited face she had when they were shopping had now turned into one deprived of any emotions.

They settle all the bags on the kitchen table, thanking Steve for the day, Nélé quickly excused herself, taking the bags with the clothes, and headed toward her room, but Steve stopped her grabbing her arm.

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah, yeah I'm okay." she smiled faintly trying to hide how she truly felt, but he wouldn't believe her.  
Steve gently seated Nélé on one of the kitchen chairs and put the second one in front of her, so he was facing her. 

"Okay, so I know what you are going through right now must be scary, and I'm totally here to support you. We agreed to help out each other as much as we could, but I can't help you if you don't tell me what's wrong. And don't tell me that you're fine when you clearly look like you're not."

They stared into each other eyes for a moment, Nélé furrowed her brows a little to try to make Steve drop the idea, but he didn't even flinch.  
He didn't like to see her like this.  
He couldn't tell why but he didn't like it, it probably because he felt somehow responsible for her.

Nélé was the one to give in first. She let a heavy sigh out and closed her eyes to find the right words.  
"I... I don't really know how to explain this or if I should even be talking to you about it, but..." Fiddling with her fingers, she took another breath and went on.

"Okay, here I go... you were right. I'm not fine. I...I was kind of hit by the reality of this time. Did you notice how people were looking at me, at us, whenever I'd be a little too close to you?"  
She didn't wait for him to answer.

"I had forgotten how people who look like me were generally treated by society. To be honest, I don't know if I should even talk to you about it, but where I come from, these kinds of things are supposed condemned by the law... people are usually against racism..." 

She took a deep breath and clenched her hands to prevent them from shaking in anger? Sadness? Fear?

"Steve, it was already hard for me to stand racism in my time, how in the world will I deal with the one from yours?"

Nélé's eyes finally met with Steve's, and his heart sank at the sight of it.  
She was doing her best to hold the tears back. Her brows were put into a frown. Her lips were tightly closed, but her chin was lightly trembling as well as her hands.  
It ached to see her in this state.  
Through her eyes, he could see all the emotions going through her, pain, sadness, fear, and even anger.

But unfortunately, segregation was one of the things he had no control over.  
Steve knew that wouldn't always be able to protect her from it, but he'd damned if he didn't try.

He once again put his hand on top of one of her fists and spoke.  
"I'm sorry you had to go through this... and I'm sorry that our society is so messed up. I can't promise you that every day is going to be easy, but I can at least promise you that you're not alone, I'll be there for you. And you can be sure that if something ever goes wrong, I definitely got your back."

There she was again, staring at him. A smile cracked its way onto her face, as she was looking into his eyes. She was able to see all how sincere he was.  
She had to admit that she felt her heart melt a little.  
She was thinking that it was probably the fangirl in her reacting to Steve's words, but he was just so cute. 

There was so much determination in his eyes, so much assurance was emanating from his frail body, Nélé ended up adverting eyes feeling a little flushed, the smile transforming into a small grin.

"Well, I hope you're in for a ride, cause I'm probably gonna get us in a whole lot of trouble." Nélé engaged  
"Nah don't worry I'm used to trouble, I get in those all the time." Steve teased back.  
They both laughed at their words, knowing that there was a "little" bit of truth behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought this chapter would be longer, but turns out that no.  
Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed this new chapter...  
Please do not hesitate to tell me if there's any wrong in the text, critics are always welcomed suggestions as well.  
Thank you!!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heey, I'm back! With a chapter that twice the length of my usual ones...  
But anyway, before we get started, I'd like to put a few warnings here;  
\- racism  
-segregation
> 
> I realize that I should probably put some...  
(PS: there's nothing big or violent so don't worry)
> 
> Enjoy

The next day went pretty well. Steve had told Nélé that he dropped out of college along with Bucky a few years ago, however only Bucky was able to make it into the army.  
So for now, Steve had to settle for a small job part-time job.  
Because Nélé really insisted, they had agreed that they would go and meet the person that will make her fake passport together once his shift would be over.

While he was gone, Nélé remained in the apartment. She busied herself as much as could, and spend her time cooking and cleaning the place.  
She was also amazed to find out that her phone actually worked!  
Well, of course, she wasn't able to reach anyone, and the internet didn't exist, so it was no surprise when most of her applications didn't work.  
(It was already a wonder that it showed in the first place)

Nélé was also happy to find out that her music app still worked, and ALL of the music content that she had remained in there!  
It was probably a small gift from God pitying her but heck, it was more than welcomed, and it helped to pass the day faster.

Steve got back from work a little after four in the evening, the sun was still up in the sky, and since it was summer it isn't going to go down until late in the evening, the place where they were supposed to go was not really known to be "safe", so he'd rather not have her walking around in the street at night.

As Steve stepped inside his apartment, he was greeted by an enticing smell of food coming from the apartment's kitchen.  
He walked in and saw Nélé who had apparently finished cooking, and was now settling the dishes on the kitchen's table. 

Nélé seemed to be totally immersed in her own world, so much that she didn't even hear Steve coming in and observing her from the living room. Her appearance had changed a little, she looked more relaxed, and she looked more like she was from the 40s.

She was wearing the dress he bought her the day prior, and she had also styled her hair out of her face.  
Nélé was humming a melody that he did not recognise, he also noticed that she was wearing an odd listening device in her ears, where it's cable was disappearing in one of her pockets.

It's only the moment she was turning back towards the counter that she took notice of Steve's presence.  
"oh, you're back. Welcome home!" 

Nélé greeted, settling the rag of cloth from shoulder to the counter, before taking off her earphones out.  
Feeling a little flushed from her smile, Steve hid his face behind his bangs.

"Yeah, thank you... I wanted to ask you if you wanted to eat out, but it looks like you beat me to it..." He answered, rubbing his neck well, she would have probably rejected him anyway...

Nélé's eyes widened. "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know what to do so I thought I'd busy myself a little... I cooked enough for both of us so, would you like to join me?"

The blond's lifted his face sending Nélé a small smile, "it'd be a pleasure ma'am."

Nélé was relieved to hear his response since she already had set the table for two.  
She wouldn't have known what to do if he had already eaten or flatly rejected her.

before they started to eat, Nélé felt like she had to warn him.  
"Hum, I notice that you mostly had canned food... so before you start eating, I have to tell you that I may have modified the taste of it... Just... tell me if you don't like it..."  
She was starting to feel a little awkward, so she just shut her mouth and focused on eating. 

Steve just nodded, the meal was pretty simple. Some white rice, that he had forgotten he had bought, along with some canned meat soup.  
He was a little apprehensive of what to expect. He usually just warmed up the canned food without adding anything to it, not that he didn't know how to cook, it was just quicker that way.  
However, when Steve took the spoon to his mouth, he was astonished by how different the taste was.  
His eye grew wide, and he looked at Nélé stuffing his mouth a little more, almost talking at the same time.

"'taste delicious! How did you do that!"

Nélé laughed at his reaction, "I just added a few ingredients here and there as well as frying some, slow down there's still some left, you don't want to choke on it."  
Steve nodded curtly slowing down on the food to enjoy the taste more.  
He would definitely not mind if she was to cook more often.

" So, Mr Rogers," Nélé started playfully resting her chin on her hands.  
"What's the plan for this evening."

Steve had almost forgotten about that and turned around to check if the sun was still up.  
He quickly finished the food and stood up abruptly.  
" We need to leave now, the place we're headed is not really safe at night."  
"oh, okay."

He locked the apartment and led the way. As he feared, Steve was a bit saddened to see that Nélé no longer walked along with him, but behind him. 

They walked around a few blocks, and Nélé noticed that the entourage was gradually changing.  
It didn't take a genius to figure it out though; they were in a neighbourhood full of black people.

It was a different experience. The place where Steve had people of colour living there as well, but it was way more diverse than where they were currently walking.  
Now all the distasteful and dirty looks were more sent towards Steve than Nélé, but it didn't make her feel any better.

Steve, however, didn't even flinch. He continued to walk straight, almost looking unbothered until they reach a small barbershop/ beauty salon.

As he entered the place followed by Nélé and looked around looking for someone.  
The hairdresser, as well as the clients, had all stopped chattering, and the ambience of the room changed. 

Nélé was starting to get uncomfortable under all the pressure of the atmosphere, she unconsciously stepped closer to Steve for some sort of comfort.  
All the eyes were set on them, some looked annoyed, probably because the treatment administrated to them was interrupted.  
Some appeared to be almost amused by the situation and other on the other looked like they couldn't care less. 

Among them all, there was one particular barber that made Nélé feel unsettled, and apparently, he was sending off the same feeling to Steve, since the dark blond shifted a bit more in front of her.  
This barber looked a little bit younger than the others he was glaring at Steve so hard, that Nélé was starting to think that he was going to jump on them.  
But as he opened his mouth to say something, he was cut off by the entrance of a short ebony woman coming from the back of the shop.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't the famous Steven grant rogers. You've got a lot of nerve for bringing your white ass in here young man."  
There was a little bit of tension in the air as the short brown skin spoke approaching Steve, but her serious expression was quickly replaced by a happily grinning one.

"Just kiddin', Steve! Long-time no see!" she said taking him into a big friendly hug.  
"Hi, Faith it sure has, how have been?" Steve replied, returning it.  
"oh well, you know same old, same old, I'm doing fine. And I see you've got company, Stevie, who's this? " Faith asked an arm settled casually settled around Steve's shoulders, turning her attention to Nélé.

"Right", steve replied turning to her as well "Nélé, this is Faith, she's a good friend of mine, Faith, this is Nélé, she's... the reason why I came here today."

"Nice to meet you, Nélé your name's interesting. So is your hair."

Nélé didn't really know if she was supposed to take it as an insult or a compliment, but she wanted to avoid creating any problem, so she chooses to take it positively.

"It's nice to meet you too." T  
they both smiled to each other a little bit awkwardly before Faith turned her attention back to Steve.  
"So tell me, Stevie, what can I do for you?"

"hum, I'd like to see your brother if it's possible."  
"Sure, lucky you, he's not busy right now. Follow me."

Faith started to walk toward the back of the shop, followed by Steve, who greeted some of the stylists and clients that he knew.  
Nélé hesitantly followed them as well, she hadn't noticed at first, but as the two talked earlier, the atmosphere had gotten lighter.

The three of them walk down a narrow corridor before Faith stops in front of one of the doors. She opened it, revealing a man seated behind a desk leaned back in his chair with the papers covering his face. Behind him, another man was standing in the corner of the room. He was leaning against a bookshelf, looking absent-mindedly outside the window.  
Faith entered the room snatching the journal that was covering the apparently sleeping man and swatted his chest with her free hand  
to pull him out of his slumber.

"wake up you sleepy head!", Faith said in his ear loud enough for him to jolt in his seat.  
"Dang it, woman, are ya tryin' to kill me!?"  
Faith ignored the man seated in the chair, a smirk on her face. Instead, she went to embrace the one who was standing by the window. 

By the look of the interaction between the two, Nélé easily could deduce that the two were a couple. She didn't know why, but she felt somehow relieved to see that.  
"It's your own fault for slacking off at the worst time possible, brother. "  
"The reason I was taking a NAP is because I had to work all night long for the sake of earning enough to bring food on our table. Now, if you woke me up just so you could cuddle with my best friend in front of me, we're goin' to have a problem Faith." The man in the chair complained a bit annoyed.

"Of course not, you jerk. That's the bonus. You got visitors." His little sister retorted a hand on her hip.  
She then turned back her attention to Nélé and Steve, with a softer smile.  
"Sorry for makin' you wait like that, " she said, she then looked at Nélé totally and pursued.  
"Don't you two just stand there, come in. Oh, before I forget my manners again, let me do the introductions." She walked behind the man in the chair and went on, "This goon other here is my twin brother, his name is Jacob Johnson, but everyone calls him Big J. He is the owner of our shop along with other minor things."  
Then smiled at them with a nod slightly smirking.  
"As for this wonderful you man over here." Faith went back to standing who welcomed her in his arms.  
"His name is Benjamin Banks, my fiancé."  
Benjamin and faith looked at each other with so much love and happiness it was contagious, causing Nélé and Steve to congratulate them with almost smitten smiles on their face.  
Even Jacob or Big J couldn't help but smile as he rolled his eyes. His little sis was in good hands, the hands of his best pal sure, but, good ones never the less.

A short but comfortable silence made its way into the room, however Big J quickly understood that Steve was here for a serious reason, so he motioned for his best friend to take his fiancé out of the room, so they could finally talk.  
Big J was indeed the owner of the barbershop, but to make the business work he had to do several other jobs, that he did not really like to talk about in front of his Faith.  
As the man of the family, it was his duty to take care of and protect his family.

"So Rogers, what brings you here? You know even though you are always welcomed in our home. The neighbourhood is still not a safe place for you to walk around. Even more at this time of the day, and in the company of a black woman. As beautiful as the dame is."  
Big J finished sending a seductive smile which was replied by Nélé who felt half amused half uneasy.

Steve wasn't really fond of BJ trying to flirt with Nélé, but he decided to cast his feeling aside. He had more import things to settle right now.  
"I actually have a favour to ask you. I need you to make paper for Nélé."

Big J eyes widened at his request, feeling surprised but even more curious.  
"What sort of paper and why would she need it?"

"She is a is an immigrant, and doesn't have any ID card, or anything..."

"Where does she lives?"  
"With me for now."

"At your-?!" Jacob stopped himself from raising his voice.  
"Do you have any idea of how dangerous that is for you and for her?!"

"I do, and I don't intend to leave her on her own. I promised I'd be there for her, that's what I'm doing." Steve words were final, he couldn't really talk about the whole coming from the future thing, but at least he did not lie.  
There was no way he'd let her on her own no matter what he or bucky had to say about that.

Next to him, Nélé was biting the inside of her lower lip pretty hard to show any sort of emotion. She was in aw for the man that was seated next to her. There was so much emotion going through her, she just decided to blame it on the fangirling.

It seemed though that her "micro" -expression didn't go unnoticed by Jacob.  
"What about you doll face, what do you think about all of this?"  
She thought for a minute before answering.  
"I... I don't want to cause any trouble. And I most certainly don't wish to be a burden nor a threat to anyone. But the only person I have and can rely on right now is Steve... "

"you're English?" Jacob interrupted.

"Actually, I'm french." 

"You sound English, though." He sassed, leaning back in his chair.

"Et donc? Je peux très bien parler les deux."  
Nélé sassed back crossing her arms, "I actually speak 8 languages more or less fluently. French and English included."

"Oh, so you're a savvy huh dollface. " Nélé's face couldn't help to scrunch slightly in disgust at the sound of the pet name. She hated them.

"What did you study there?"

"I studied in Canada, and I majored in art and languages." she didn't want to get too specific in case her programs did not exist then.

Jacob seemed to be considering the whole thing for a moment before he spoke again.

"Look, because I owe you a big favour, I'm gonna do it, but, I want you to make sure that you know the risk you are taking just by living together. I case you didn't notice, you're a white man living with a black woman. People don't like seeing these sort of combo, pal."

"I don't care what people think, I'm not let her down J."  
He wouldn't budge, and his piercing blue eyes were speaking for him, so Jacob gave in. 

"Fine. But creatin' an identity ain't easy, buddy. It's gonna take me at least a few weeks, and take loads of bucks. "  
"how much, J?"  
" at least 25 dollars."()  
Steve's eyes widened at the sound of the price, but he quickly regained composure to avoid worrying Nélé.  
"I'll pay for it."

"You sure, pal. That's least two rents worth of money, if not more. You're sure you can afford it?"

"I'll work for it-"

"I will too!"

The men turned to the dark-skinned women woman who just chimed in.  
"Look, Nél-"  
"No you boys, listen to me. You are going through all of this trouble, going against the law and the public's morals, for me. You're ready to put yourself in deep shit, so I'll be damned I don't do the same!"

Steve and Jacob stared in shock at Nélé's outburst and change of speech, thought the two of them were impressed by her behaviour the reactions she drew out them, were quite different. While steve's was totally flushed, Jacob was dying of laughter.

"Now you sound American! You're funny one sweetheart I like you."  
Nélé disgusted face at the sound of the pet name broke into a smile and started laughing with him and steve who had joined them.

As their discussion was now over, the three of them headed out of Jacob study room.  
They entered the salon part of the shop once again.  
The sun was about to set.  
The clients had already left, safe for a few the hairdressers and barbers, who remained to clean up the place.  
Steve and Nélé were about to leave, saying goodbye to the crew, surprised by how friendly they now were.  
(Nélé at least was. Steve, on the other hand, seemed to know them pretty well. )

As they were about to cross the door, the twins stopped them simultaneously. They glanced at each other before turning back and attempted to speak again. At the same time.  
They then glare at each other battling for dominance before Jacob gave in with a sigh, let his sister speak with a satisfied look on her face.  
"What I wanted to say is; you should come back here tomorrow. Even if I love your hair, you should probably change it for something less... out of the ordinary. "

"you little fox, you listened to us ?!"

"Why are you shocked, ain't nothing new about that," she replied with a matter of fact look.

"Anyway, Nélé, I like you. So make sure you come back tomorrow, and you'll get your makeover. It's on me."

"I will, thank you so much!" the smile that adorned Nélé's face reached her eyes. It had only been three days since she got here, but she was starting things might not be so bad for her.

Jacob cleared his throat to get back everyone's attention. "What, I wanted to say was; there's a small dinner a few streets away from here. I know the boss well, and I'm pretty sure they wouldn't mind having a new waitress working for them. As soon as get what you need though."

Nélé lips stretched even truther that they thought it was possible. "that'd be amazing!! I'd love that."  
They once again thanked the Johnson family and friends and finally headed back home.

The walk back home had been more cheerful than when they had left, probably because they were too happy to care about their surroundings. Once they reached the apartment, they took turns in the bathroom to change into their nightwear.  
Steve was the first one to get ready. When he was finished, he just sat onto his couch and reached out for a book, not feeling the need to go to sleep yet.  
Not so long after, Nélé came out of the bathroom only wearing the shirt Steve had given her, leaving most of her legs bare and exposed and a towel around her shoulders.  
At the sight of her, steve's heart almost came out of his chest, and if his face wasn't tomato red at the moment, he was pretty sure that his embarrassment could be seen on his ears.

Nélé oblivious to the effect she had on the poor golden-haired man who had turned his attention back to his book, she carefully approached him stoping the entrance linking the room to the kitchen, leaning against it.

"Do you mind if I keep you company for a bit?"

"No-not at all, feel free to join me," Steve replied, hoping that his embarrassment was no longer visible on his face.  
To make it even better, she slopped down on the couch next to him. She was so close to him that he could almost feel her shoulder touching his.  
Nélé had approached him tonight to thank him once more, but even more so, to get to know him better.  
They both stayed in a silence that was getting more and more uncomfortable until Nélé broke it.

"Say, Steve?"  
"yeah?"

"Thank you. For everything. Again. You have no idea of how thankful am right now... I owe you, big time."

"No, you don't. Look, I didn't do this to have you being in debt to me, I do this because I want to. And I know it sounds crazy because it's only been a few days since we met, and I don't really know you but... I, I feel... close to you?"  
He finished, himself being uncertain about how he felt about Nélé, by now the boy was hiding behind his hair, finding a new interest in looking at his hands.

"I feel the same," Nélé replied, putting a hand on top of his."I want, I want us to be friends, I'd like to know more about you... "

Steve finally looked into her eyes; they both shared a tender smile that relaxed them.  
"I feel the same way."  
"Well, today was sure filled with a lot of meaningful and emotional speeches, huh?" Nélé miserably tried to joke.

Steve chuckled lightly, "Yeah, I guess so, but sometimes it ain't so bad either..."

Nélé nodded, agreeing with him. These kinds of talks weren't really her thing, but she had to admit that sometimes it was nice to hear.

After a small silence, Steve successfully tried to break the Ice.

"So, I heard you more or less speak 8 languages?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there always a tones of things I want to say in the notes sections, but I always wind up forgetting once I'm supposed to be typing...


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one extra long, just for you guys!
> 
> Enjoy

That night, Steve and Nélé talked to each other until late. They both learned a lot about each other, sharing their passion for drawing, talking about their taste in music, the food they liked what they didn't, joking around. It had been pretty nice. 

The next day, Nélé went back to the salon as promised. She went there early in the afternoon because she knew how much work treating her hair was going to be. 

Steve insisted on walking Nélé to the barbershop and promised her that he'd come to pick her up after his shift.  
To be honest, Nélé had mixed feelings about him doing so, mainly because of the warning Big J had given the night before and the odd looks she had received from the people there at their arrival. (especially from the young one.)  
But when they got there, the place was sending off a totally different vibe. The people that recognised Steve greeted him with a more cheerful attitude, some clients were looking a bit confused, and others just minded their own business continuing to gossip about whatever they had to talk.

Faith immediately came to greet Nélé and Steve, giving them quick warm hugs, and rushing Nélé to take a seat, so they could get started.   
Steve didn't stay any longer since he had to leave for work.   
While he was gone, Nélé once again was introduced the other member of the crew.   
In total, they were a team composed of 8 people, Faith, Jacob and Benjamin included.

From the girl's side, Nélé met Suzy and Tiana. They were both hairstylists and close friends of Faith.   
Suzy was a light brown-skinned woman, wavy shoulder lengthed hair adorned her petite silhouette. It was parted to the side, and each two small part of her hair were attached on either side of her head, letting her whole face exposed. She was a bit shy, but she was mostly a kind, calm and poised woman.

Tiana, on the other hand, had a look that matched her personality more. Her hair was pulled into a mid-height ponytail, it was parted to the side, and a big chunk of hair waved diagonally on her forehead, still letting both of her eyes out of it.  
Her make up was a bit more pronounced than the ones Suzy and Faith wore.   
Tiana was known for being the edgier, mature, sassy woman of the group. She's always ready to defend those who she considered close to her.

On the men side, Nélé already knew Big J and Ben, as they both requested to be called. She still got to meet Jeffrey, who was probably the oldest among them. 

In his mid-fifties, Jeffrey was a kind old man who had been working with them since they opened the business. He was a bit like the uncle of their group. He wasn't that tall and had a corpulent figure, his hair was starting to turn grey, but he always blabbed about how happy he was to have it that way because his wife found it "ginchy". (it meant sexy back in the days.)

They had told Nélé that there was another barber in their team, but couldn't come that day because he had some family issues. It was the younger hostile stylist that had seen the day prior. The kid was a sixteen years old apprentice that Big J took under his wing since he dropped out of school to get a job a few months ago.   
All of them were like one big family, always ready to be there for each other.

She actually got along with people from there quite much.   
Well, she had the time to make friends: It took 6 hours for them to get her hair done.   
Taking off all of her braids had been a pretty long process itself, (3hours, Nélé even helped to go faster) but it was after they washed her hair, that the trouble had begun.  
Faith, who had been the one to wash Nélé's hair, came back with a shocked expression on her face.

When Nélé entered the room, that people understood Faith reaction. Her were still damp from the washing, but Nélé was one of those who had the kinkiest type of hair. Her hair wasn't long in the first place, but thanks to the water, her natural curls started showing, thus leading for the whole thing to shrink.  
Nélé had extreme kinky curls, and so so so so much hair, that even Tania felt a bit intimidated by it.

Thankfully, Nélé reassured them that so long her hair stayed even slightly damp, it would be quite easy to manipulate the, and Faith was happily surprised to notice so when she tentatively combed her fingers through with ease.  
As a hairstylist, Faith had encountered all type of hair, but Nélé's was one of those rare cases.  
It took several attempts, but after 3 hours of hard work and hot combing, they finally were able to get the result they were aiming for.   
They finished a little bit after closing time. Faith was pretty damn proud of her work and made sure to Give Nélé a pretty long lecture on how to maintain her hair in good shape.  
The rest of the crew were quite impressed and complimented Nélé's new appearance.  
Big J didn't hesitate and shamelessly tried flirting with her, but was cut by his sister who was too tired to deal with her brother, causing people to share a good laugh.   
Soon after their moment, Steve arrived at the salon. His lightly quickened breath was indicating that he had been hurrying on his way.

"Ha! there you are Stevie, you're late! As usual!" Faith chanted on a playful tone.

"Sorry, I tried to get as soon as I could but-"   
Steve words got caught in his through his eyes landed on Nélé while he was scanning through the small group of people.  
She was, she was just beautiful.   
Her appearance had totally changed, not that it was a bad thing.  
Her numerous long braids were now replaced by short wavy curls.  
With this new appearance, Nélé was now really looked like she belonged in the '40s.   
As a matter of facts, Steve almost didn't recognise her when he entered the salon. 

"So? Do I look like a gal from the '40s?" Nélé nervously joked taking a step towards him. She even tried to put on the best Brooklyn accent she could muster.

"You, you look... Beautiful..."

"Why thank you!" nélé grinned back at his response.  
"Yeah, thank you, dolling her up wasn't a piece of cake, nut we made!" Faith interrupted dramatically making the group laugh.   
A little bit of teasing later from the crew to steve, Nélé and him went back home.  
The walk had thankfully been peaceful, now that her appearance was no longer attracting attention.

Once in the apartment, Nele went to her room to put the clothes she had received from faith away, while Steve had insisted on being the one to cook. She wanted to do it, but he argued that she was a guest and that she cooked the day prior already, so he wanted to be the one to do the cooking this time.  
That evening, the two of them sat and ate in a comfortable atmosphere. There was not a lot of talking, probably because they still felt a little bit awkward around each other, but it was not unbearable either. 

After eating, Nélé requested to be one in charge of washing the dishes, but of course, Steve being the gentleman that he was, insisted that has a host he had to be the one to do it.  
But this time Nélé didn't back down from her offer. Though she knew she could be pretty lazy, her momma had raised to know better than to be at other people places and not give a hand when it came to cleaning, especially after eating.

Since the two of them were so stubborn, they agreed on working on the dishes together, with little smiles on their faces.

"Looks like we're going to have to settle some rules between us. If we keep on fighting over who gets to clean, and who gets to cook..." Nélé started breaking the silence lying between them.

"hum, I don't know, my mother taught me that that as a host, it's not really a good thing to have their guest doing the chores at home. Especially when the guest is a such a bel dame as you are."  
Steve blushed a little as he dried the last plate from the sink. Was he trying to flirt with her? 

Nélé smiled slightly at the idea but quickly decided to dismiss it.   
The girl was going to be living off the poor guy's money, she shouldn't get ahead of herself like that.  
"Tell you what", she turned to him putting the rag on the edge of the sink.

"If you're not too tired, I proposed we both change into something comfier, then we can talk about those rules. We can even hang out a little if you want to."

"Hang out?" Steve cocked an eyebrow tilting his head a little.

"Oh, it means, huh, spending some time together, but not really doing anything either, chatting, reading books, that kind of stuff..." Nélé nervousness came back, she had forgotten about the gap between their two generations. Guess she'll have to be careful about what she says d him.  
Hey, it might even be a nice subjet of discussion!

"Sure," Steve replied, getting her out of her train of thoughts "I'd like that."

"Great! Then I'll, huh, go get ready then" on these words Nélé ran away to her room, not waiting for an answer.

She got out of her room around ten minutes later, finishing to wrap a scarf over her hair.  
This time, she didn't wear Steve's shirt anymore but wore the nightdress that Faith had handed over to her. It was a long and decent dress, but it still embarrassed Steve a bit.  
He was not really used to see women dressed in nightwear.

"So," Nélé began, seating next to steve on the couch, "what's the plan?"

"I don't know, told you I'm not really used to let a guest do the housework..."

"Well, I'm not used to be a guest that does nothing, my mom raised me to know better. " Nele retorted with a shudder imagining her mother's "look".  
She then went on, "let me ask you this, do you cook and clean after James whenever he shows up at your place?"

"Well, not all the time, not really, only when he's too soused to do even walk on his own..."

"soused?" Nélé smiled at the word intrigued, she had an idea of what he was meant, but it was still kind of funny not hear.

"Oh, that means drunk, sorry I didn't realise that you guys might not be speaking that way anymore in the future."

"Don't sweat it, Steve. It is pretty interesting to hear, plus I'll have to learn theses words eventually, anyway." She reassured.

"Anyway, back to what we were first saying, young man, if you're not always cleaning after James mess, there's no reason for you to do so with me too. " Nélé sad matter of factly.

"B-but, it's not the same thing! Buck's my friend and-" 

"So I'm not?" Nélé cut in fakely offended.

"Wha-? No! That's not what I-, I mean, we are friends!" (at least he hoped so) Steve stuttered on his words. He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath to compose himself again.  
To his surprise, he opened them back meeting a Nélé that could barely contain her laughter.

"Are you makin' fun of me ?" Steve incredulously asked, which made her explode with laughter. 

"Sorry, sorry, but it was too tempting. I didn't think you'd take me so seriously." Nélé replied, putting a hand on his knee, wiping a tear with the other.

"I guess you got me there" Steve chuckled lightly, he wanted to be mad, but her laugh was too contagious.

"Well, if we ARE friends as you said so nicely. You gonna have to be ready for loads of teasing from me buddy" She teased with a devious smile.  
"And, since I AM a friend, you're gonna have to put your gentleman aside and let me some of the housework. " Nélé finished.

Steve sighed, a smirk making its way on his face.   
"Guess you're right."

"You bet I am."  
"But bucky and I 've been buddies since we were pups, you still have a long way to go before you get to our level of friendship."

"It's a good thing I like challenges. So what rule should we talk about next?"

They talked for a long moment, having fun and getting to know one another better.  
Through their talk, they managed to come up with the rules, which sort of ended up being no real ones.   
Nélé had confessed to Steve that she was not really the cleanest person alive, especially because she had the tendency of being lazy. Steve tried to turn it to his advantage, and make it so he would be the one to be in charge of the kitchen duty, but Nélé was still not having it.  
They agreed on the basic switching every day if one did the dishes the other would be in charge of cooking and vice versa.  
As for the bathroom needs and pretty much everything else, it'd be a first come- first served kind of thing.

Since it was getting late Steve suggested to Nélé that it was maybe time for them go to sleep since the boy had to work the next day, she wanted to chat with him more but agreed for his sake, noticing that the man looked tired.  
They could always continue to talk the next day anyway.

The following weeks were pretty uneventful, and the two of them started to settle into some sort of routine.   
Steve would go to work and Nélé would mostly stay at home, busying herself however she could: drawing, cleaning, playing with her pretty much useless phone, and sleeping. Loads of sleeping. 

Sometime, Nélé would go out to the hair salon to hang out with and even help out a little.  
At home, Steve and Nélé had gotten more and more used to living with one another. They would spend more time together, which was something Bucky was not really a fan of. He and Nélé were like cats and dogs, and Steve was starting to spend more time home just to "hang out" with Nélé, so he had to stay home with them.  
Truth is they didn't really hate each other, and since Bucky would have to go back to the army eventually, he was happy to know that his best friend wasn't going to be left on his own.  
He and Nélé were just too full of shit to admit i. 

Weird things started the day after bucky returned to the training camp.  
The day had started just like any other day. It was a Saturday, so Steve didn't have to go to work. It was Steve'st turn to cook for them, so Nélé was in charge of cleaning.  
They had eaten the that he had prepared, it was funny because Steve had claimed that the diner was one of his "specialities" and he had refused any help from her.  
When it was time for her to tastes it, Nélé was barely able to hold her laughter because of how expecting Steve was. 

The food had a good taste, much to Steve relief.  
Nélé had liked it quite a bit, but she still ended up spitting her food from laugher, when he mumbled that he was never cooking that again. 

The dinner table was now a real mess, Nélé almost choked, and they were caught into a laughing fit.  
Yeah, it had been a good day.   
Once Nélé and Steve had finished their meal, Nélé started to clean up their mess.  
Steve tried to give her a hand, but she swatted his hand when he reached for the empty plates. They bickered childishly for a few minutes resulting on Nélé giving in and accepting having him to wipe off the dirty table.  
Once he was done with it, Steve excuse himself to the restroom, promising to come back to help her with the dishes as well no matter what she had to say about it.   
It was then that it happened.   
Nélé has finished washing the plates and glasses that were drying next to the sink. She was scrubbing the dirt off the casserole and even began singing softly to herself a song that had been in her head for too long.   
She was about to turn to put it on the table behind her to let it dry but-  
"Wow, that's a beautiful song, I didn't know you could sing, doll."

"holly shit, motherfuck-!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Little warning: my chapter may be longer from now on.  
If you guys see any thing weird, typos or other errors Please tell me!   
Constructive criticism is always welcomed!   
Thank you


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought this one was a bit shorter but it turns out that no...  
but I have to warn you that some fluff is to be expected. *devil emoji*

As he was washing his hands, Steve looked up at his reflection in the mirror, a smile creeping its way on his face.  
Sure, it had only been a couple of weeks since they met, but Steve realised that he liked this.  
He liked spending time with Nélé, he liked having drawing contest with her whenever one of them didn't feel like doing something (mostly chores), he liked teasing her and being teased by her.  
But what he probably liked the most, was that whenever he came home from work, she was here to greet him, or if she was out, there was always a small note indicating him about her whereabouts.  
When he had rejected Bucky's proposal to live with him and his family, Steve knew that he would be fine on his own.  
But ever since his mother died, Steve hadn't realised how lonely it could be. Well, it was different now he had a friend to keep him company, and she was a beautiful person inside and out.

The boy had been lost in his sea of thought, when he was pulled by the sound of Nélé's singing voice.  
He was impressed, her voice was amazing!  
Steve could not recognise the song, but it sounded so unfamiliar that he assumed that it was probably a song from the future. Nevertheless, the melody coming out of her made the song sound so much better.  
Without thinking, Steve couldn't help but compliment her as he stepped out of the bathroom.

"Wow, that's a beautiful song, didn't know you could sing, doll."

"Holy shit, motherfuck-"  
His words had taken Nélé by surprise making her jump like a scared cat, as she was turning around the casserole in hands.  
As she abruptly turned around, Néle knocked over the drainer that still contained the plates and glasses.  
Instinctively, she dropped the casserole to grab the plates or whatever she could stop from shattering (yup that's dumb), and Steve was about to launch himself on her to stop her from doing that, but it was too late. It all happened too quickly.  
They both clenched their eyes shut, bracing themselves for the sound of the dishes shattering on the floor but it never came. 

"Steve?... What the fuck is happening?" he voiced sounded weak and shaky.  
What was happening had to be pretty bad, because of for one, it was the first time he heard her swear, and two, the last time he had heard Nélé's voice sounding like this, was when she realised that she was trapped in the past.  
It pulled a nerve in him, maybe that's why it took him so long to open his eyes. Steve didn't know if he was ready for this, again.

And when he did, the scenery wasn't disappointing. His eyes immediately landed on Nélé.  
She seemed to be frozen in a flinching pose, her arms were tensed towards her torso, her hands were clenched into two tight fists, and her eyes were big and shaken like those of a deer caught in a headlight.  
Steve then glanced at what she was staring at with so much panic and everything, everything that was supposed to be on the floor broken and shattered was floating in mid-air, bathing in some sort of yellow-tinted light.

"What the hell is happening?" were the first words that came out of his mouth.

"I don't fucking know!" Nélé stressed turning abruptly to face him, her brusk movement making all the floating object around her to shift along with her, and causing her to squeal and panic even more.

"Okay, okay, don't move! Let's, let's just calm down." Steve told Nélé, his hands in the air trembling without him noticing.

"How the hell am I freaking supposed calm down, Steven!!"

"Okay, I get it, I get it! Let take both a deep breath. Can you do this for me?" Steve asked, fixing Nélé eyes, trying to keep her and himself as calm as possible.

Nélé still looked terrified but somehow managed to relax her body a little, her glowing fists still clenched, and started to do as he asked.

"good," Steve smiled, his eyes still on her as he was brainstorming for a solution.  
"Okay," he went on, "Nélé imma need you to do the exact same moves that I do, can you that for me, doll?"

The woman just nodded in response, leading to Steve to smile even more. He then proceeded to lower himself slowly towards the floor, silently encouraging Nélé who was mirroring him.  
They were now both seated down on the ground and thankfully, everything surrounding Nélé was either on the floor or barely hovering it.  
Somehow, Nélé was able to relax fully and taking a deep breath, she slowly unclasped her hands, provoking the glow to disappear and the dishes to fall on the ground. 

"Well, that was something" steve chuckled after a long silence.  
By then, his breathing had gotten back to a semi-normal pace, and his heart had seemed to have calmed down as well.  
"It was crazy, huh."

"It sure fuckin' was Steven... I, I don't even get what happened."

"Well, I may be wrong but... it looked to me like you seem to have some kind of powers."

"Great, that absolutely what I needed. As if inter-dimensional time travelling wasn't good enough, the universe had to add weird telekinesis- ish powers on top of it all." Nélé mumbled more to herself than anything but apparently, it was just loud enough for the bark blond man to hear.  
It made him laugh a bit louder this time.  
He stood up and walked to the ebony woman, helping her to get on her feet before he led her to sit on the couch in the living room. Right now, they needed a change of scenery, the mess in the kitchen could wait.

Another awkward silent went to sit between the two individuals, again, and steve was the one to break it. Again.

"So, what do we do about this ?" asked softly.  
"...I don't know..." The french girl replied slumping forward, her head lifted up however, when she felt a hand resting on top her right one on the couch.  
Steve didn't know why but he gave in the urge to hold her hand, he didn't know if he did it to reassure her or himself, but at the moment, it just felt right. Well, the soft smile finally making its way across Nélé's features told him so anyways.

"Should we go to a doctor or something?"

"Are you nuts?? I don't want to end up locked up and get experimented on like a guineapig! We don't tell anyone about this!" The woman exclaimed in horror, but somehow it only caused the blond to laugh at her antics.

"Okay, okay, we don't tell anyone. So what do we do then?" Steve asked again, but this the grin wouldn't disappear from his face. 

Nélé just sent him a playful glare for him making fun of her in such situation before, actually reflecting on the question.  
"First, we DON'T tell anyone. We don't the government or mad scientist on our ass, I certainly don't.Second, well, the only thing I can do is to learn how to control whatever this is, so I don't end up repeating that little accident in the middle of the street."  
After a sigh, she went on "Looks like I'll have to restrain from going out even more now, huh. Too bad looks like it's gonna be your turn to buys the groceries tomorrow after all."

"You don't sound so sad about that" Steve playfully shoved her shoulder, making her laugh and reciprocate the act.  
"I have to admit that wasn't to keen on the idea of going out tomorrow anyway." She smirked at him.  
"But seriously though, are you sure you'll be fine staying confined home like this ?" Steve asked, feeling a bit concerned for his friend. It may have only been a few weeks since he had met her, but he knew Nélé enough to know how much she liked exploring the city and especially spending time with Faith and the crew.

"Yeah" Nélé breathed out, with a smile "At least jus for a while so I can figure how to control my..."powers"..." She finished, tasting the odd word on her lips. The two of them fell back into silence once more, but this time the feeling of uneasiness was replaced by a comfortable one. 

"Today sure was a hell of a weird day, huh?" Nélé finally spoke, resting her head on Steve's shoulder. 

"Yeah, today was totally bonkers. In fact, I don't think I've ever heard you swear before. Didn't think you'd have such a potty mouth, doll." The boy teased, getting a better grip of Nélé's hand and rubbing small circles against it.

Steve and Nélé kept staring at the wall in front of them. The gesture didn't make Nélé freeze or anything, but it did cause her to scrunch her face in confusion.  
Nélé hardly belonged to the cuddly type of people, it quite the contrary in fact. She never felt comfortable with people getting touchy with her, not even when the attention came from her own sister.  
The only people she was fine being like that with were her parents, that'd why she was so confused right now, she didn't feel bad being so physically close to Steve, it was actually quite the contrary. 

"What? but I curse all the time, Steven!" She dramatically responded, turning to Steve with a grin on her face," it just happens not to be in English, that's all."

"it must at least the third time you call me that, " the man blurted out, looking her in the eyes. 

"Call you what ?"  
"Steven, nobody calls me that except my ma."  
"Well you ain't any better than me, you keep on calling me Doll."  
"Oh sorry, you don't like it ?" Steve blushed, he wasn't as smooth with the ladies as Bucky was.

"Hmm,... to be totally honest with you, I hate pet names, it gives me the chills. But weirdly enough, hearing it from you doesn't gross me out, in fact, I think it might even grow on me." The ebony woman could not resist the urge to tease him as she saw how red his ears had become.  
But as the boy didn't answer, let the red appearing on his face respond for him, so she went on, "it means that I don't mind you calling me Doll, dummy!" Nélé reassured him, swatting his shoulder with her free hand.

She couldn't stop the smile coming onto her lips as she looked at the one getting bigger on Steve's. They continued to look at each other before Nélé decided to go ahead and break the mood.

"We should probably go and clean the mess that waiting for in the kitchen."  
"Oh, there's an "us" now? I thought you wanted to clean the kitchen on your own?"

"Well, since you insisted so much to help me before, I decided it'd be too mean to refuse your offer again."

"Before I even get to propose anything, dang!"  
"What can I say, I'm from the future, I'm good at anticipating."  
"Let's get to it before I change my mind doll."  
"Sir, yes, sir."

The next day, Nélé Stayed home while steve went out grocery shopping. He also went to the barbershop to announce that Nélé would not be able to visit them for a while as she had gotten sick.  
Their friends had immediately gotten worried, but Steve was quick to reassure them, saying that she was just covering a small cold.  
On the other hand, Nélé spent the whole day tiring herself trying to activate and stabilize her powers.

It took her the whole day to actually be able to concentrate her energy and to manifest it.  
She first thought that if she meditated enough, she'd eventually be able to make it, but of course, things were not going to be so easy. She tried to empty her mind, but there was always something popping up in the corner of it, and it kept interrupting her meditation. 

At some point, Nélé began to try out new things as ridiculous as they could be (yup, she even tried to imitate spiderman). Seeing that it wasn't really working, she then went back onto meditating.  
It's as she was finally able to entirely concentrate, that she only got able to manifest a little spark of energy when steve pulled her out of her trance, scaring the shit out her.

The poor guy had just wanted to get his friend to eat something, but she was so focused on her task that he found her in the same position as she was when he left for the barbershop.  
At least now, thanks to Steve, she knew what feeling was the trigger to it all, so she focused on it during the next following days.  
Steve was actually surprised by how fast she was improving, by the end of the following week, she was able to create little balls of energy and could even levitate small objects on short distances.  
It was quite impressive to look at.

And just like this, the month of July went by in a blink of an eye. As she gained better control of her powers, Nélé started going out again, hanging out with the girls at the shop or sometimes in town, when they weren't working.  
When she wasn't with the crew at the barbershop, Nélé would spend all of her time with Steve, falling back once more into their old routine.  
The French woman wasn't a hundred per cent sure if it was reciprocated, but she found herself liking spending time with steve more and more, as they would either "hang out" at home, go out in the city where they had found a few secret places where they could be by each other side, away from the prying eyes of society.

"Say..." Nélé started, opening her eyes to looking at steve from his lap.  
"hmm?" Steve responded, taking his attention off his book just enough to listen to her. It had been another one of those weekends were they had decided to just laze around each other.

"Why don't I have a nickname for you? "

"What do you mean?"

"I mean everybody calls you with their own nicknames but me, how is that fair?"

"Doll, are you tired or bored already? You always start weird conversations like this when your either one of the two." Steve tried to deflect the subject of conversation, he didn't why, but the idea of giving a nickname made his heartbeat quicken.

"Hey! It's a totally genuine question I'm asking you there don't make it sound weird when it's not, now I feel offended. You call me all the damn time!" She ranted, while almost knocking the book out his grip, with a fake pout on her face.

"Fine, fine, I'm sorry I didn't mean to upset you doll," Steve chuckled at her antics, "so, what do you want to call me then ?"

"Hmm, let me think about it" Nélé started, she stared a the ceiling and started reflecting out loud, "What could I call you anyway..."

"You could call me Steve, as everybody does? " he inquired, finally put his book aside to meet her look, "or Stevie," the boy shrugged,  
but Nélé scrunched her nose in distaste.

"Nah, everybody calls you that. I want a nickname that'll be mine only." She retorted, "We need something new, original, that has history and something that doesn't sound like a pet name..." She went on, letting another grimace show on her face.

Steve rolled his eyes closing his hand on the sofa, truth is, he actually wanted to run his fingers through her curls, but he already knew better than to touch a black woman's hair without her approval, thanks to Faith.  
Plus, he didn't have the guts to ask her.  
He didn't know if it was because she was from the future, but even Nélé qualified herself as a non-touchy person, she was pretty damn forward when it came to the physical display of affection. At least for him. Once again, he wasn't the one who was popular with ladies and even then, usually the ladies weren't as forward Nélé was.  
But the way, she could show herself to be affectionate, like when she put her head on his lap or his shoulder, or when she grabbed his arm when nobody was looking. It did not happen all the time, but whenever it did, it just made he want to reciprocate her gesture even more than she did.  
Sometimes, Steve wished that he was more confident in himself, but he was just so scared of getting rejected by her that-  
Wait a minute, why did it matter for him so much in the first place? Nélé was a friend, a really great one, but that was i-

"Wonders..."

"What?" Steve blinked, out of his thoughts.

"Wonders, I think I'm gonna call you that from now on," she answered smiling.

"I don't get it...why "wonders"? " The blond knitted his brows in confusion.

Nélé smile only got brighter, almost glowing.  
"Because ever since I met you, you've only brought wonders into my life."

It was then that Steve understood it all, as he looked into her face, as he let himself sucked into her intoxicating smile, as he felt this urge to connect his lips upon hers.  
He wanted to keep her smiling like this all the time.

Steven Grant Rogers was in love. And he was in pretty deep.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nélé's ID is done, things between her and Steve evolve, and she gets to learn more about her friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: mention of LGBT characters, violence, racism, attempt of rape and possible murder. OH, and a lot of tears...It was in the 40's after all...  
There's some fluff too !  
It's one of them extra long chapter, so buckle up buckaroo!
> 
> Enjoy ;-)

The month of August 1940 had already well begun, and it had been a couple of weeks since Steve had realised his feelings for Nélé and nothing had changed between them, the only thing that did change was that he was now able to put on a name on the uncomfortable feeling he had whenever he'd see Big J getting to close or too flirty with Nel.  
Yes, he called her Nel now. Steve started her calling that in front of Big J and the other out of jealousy just to show how close they were to each other, but only got teased by them in return, and somehow it became one of the two nicknames he'd ever have for her.

Eventually, the day came when Nélé finally received her ID documents. It was in the middle of the month, on a Wednesday. Steve had an afternoon shift lasting until 6 pm and worked little over time because his boss had said so, so he returned home around eight in the evening.   
He opened the door and was welcomed by the inviting smell of the food that had been prepared.  
Steve was also surprised that they had guests here as well.   
It was Faith, Benjamin and Big J. The three of them were chatting with Nélé, who was setting the warm plate of food on the table.

"Ah, the man of the house finally shows up." Jacob was the first to acknowledge his presence, greeting the smaller man in a quick hug, followed by Benjamin and Faith. 

"Hey! what are you all doing here?" Steve greeted back with a happy be but nevertheless confused smile.  
"Hey, Stevie! Don't worry, we're not staying for dinner, we just needed to hand something over to our little Nélé over there, we were about to see ourselves out. Right boys?" Faith was quick to reply with a knowing smile.   
Steve's eyebrows knotted in confusion even more to her words, but it was mostly because of the face she was making, it looked suspicious.  
However, before her brother could protest, Ben J quickly understood what his lover meant and started pushing his best friend toward the exit, rushing some quick goodbyes.  
And just like that, they were gone, leaving the to house resident in utter confusion.

"Well, that was weird," steve concluded, chuckling a bit at what had just happened.

"It sure fuckin was." Nélé agreed, laughing lightly with him as she went back on settling the table.  
"Language, Nel." Steve sighed smiling, he knew damn well that it was not gonna stop her from doing so, in fact, she just pulled her tongue out at him in response.  
Nélé then proceeded to eagerly lead steve to the dining table as soon as he was in more comfortable clothes.

"So how is it?" The dark-skinned woman asked expectantly as soon as the man put a fork full of food in his mouth.

Steve couldn't help but fondly smile at her giddiness. "It's delicious," he replied as soon as he swallowed, and was already preparing another forkful of the food.  
Nélé's smile only got brighter as she turned her attention back on her food.  
Once they finished eating, Nélé insisted on helping him with the dishes, which was a bit strange since it had been a small while since they had been trying to force themselves on the other chores. Especially since there was hardly anything to wash, but Steve didn't find the strength to reject her when she claimed that she wanted to help him just to get to spend some time with him.

"So, what is it ?"

"Huh?"

"Don't "huh" me Nel, you've been acting, like, overly sweetly, and you've been super excited ever since I've gotten home. So spill it doll, you're giving me jitters actin' like that. What is it?" he asked, grabbing each of Nélé's arms.   
She had been looking so happy, he was almost starting to imagine the worst. Like a boyfriend.

Nélé just looked at him in the eyes thinking and biting her lower lip to prevent herself from grinning.  
"Nah, it'll be better if I show you," the brunet finally decided, getting out of his grip and rushing to fetch something in her room.  
She emerged out of her it a few seconds later, holding a big envelope between her brown fingers. 

"Is that?" Steve's eyes widened in slow motion in the realisation of what was going on. The paper constituting her new ID had finally arrived.

"Yes!!" Nélé eagerly nodded, "Big J said everything arrived this morning! He only gave them to me this evening because Faith insisted on being here when I'd receive it." Nélé happily continued, she felt like she about to crying of joy. 

"Can you believe it ?! Oh, and Ben J went to that diner place they were talking about last time, and the boss there said that I could start the day after tomorrow! Now I'll be able to help you with the house expenses and-"  
Nélé didn't finish rambling when two slender arms pulled into a tight hug full of feeling. The gesture surprised her, but it was welcomed just as quickly. She wrapped her arms around steve's waist and buried her face in the crook of his neck. If they weren't holding each other so tightly, the envelope between them would have fallen on the floor for sure.

"I'm so happy for you..." Steve, murmured in her hair. The man couldn't lift her off the ground, but could still hold her as tight as he could, and he'd be damned if he didn't try.

"It all thanks to you, Steve" Nélé replied just as softly.

The two pulled apart just enough so that their eyes could lock one onto another, and they immediately felt the need to do the same with their lips.   
Neither of them was able to withdraw from the staring contest that was currently going on between them.   
Their breaths were colliding one against another. Steve and Nélé could feel the other's warmth on themselves. Heck, it hadn't been for the envelope between their chests, the two would have been able to sense each other's heartbeat. 

As they silently continued to gaze in each other's eyes, Steve and Nélé both started to lean forward simultaneously.  
It had been the perfect moment for a kiss, or at least it should have been.   
Though at very las second, as their lips would finally be able to connect, as they barely brushed one another, the blond suddenly got scared and changed his aim leading him to pour all of the passion of his feeling on her cheek instead, but still remaining oh so close to her lips.

Steve, eventually pulled back and gave a soft smile to Nélé's unreadable feature, she still ended up returning it though.  
"Did you open it ?"

"No, I was waiting for you to do it." Nélé grinned, getting excited all over again.

The next day, Steve left for work in the morning, and after taking care of whatever she needed to, Nélé went to the salon.  
As soon as she pushed the door of the shop open, Nélé was nearly tackled onto the ground by Suzy. She also heard a chorus of congratulations from the people behind her.

"Congratulations, Néné!! We heard the news from the twins! I'm so happy for you!" Suzy exclaimed, hugging her friend into a tight and bubbly hug!  
"I'm so happy you were able to receive a visa! And you also got a job at Billy's! Attagirl, I'm so proud of you." The shorter woman released Nélé from the hug letting Tiana ruffling our protagonist's hair, making a real mess out of it.

"Hey, don't mess my hair, I'm supposed to start workin' tomorrow!" Nélé half jocked attempting to arrange her curls back in place.   
"Aw, it's fine, you'll start in the afternoon, right? Pass by in the morning, I'll do your hair, and don't worry, it'll be on the House." Tiana smirked putting and arm around Nélé's shoulder.  
Then, the boys of the shop chimed in as well to congratulate her. Jeffrey congratulating her with a bear hug, and praised her like a proud father.  
Michael and David congratulated went to her too.   
She wasn't as close to them as she was to the others, but there weren't any tension or animosity between them either.

Micheal was Tiana's lover, who also worked at the barbershop, under Jacob's care. Nélé had met him a little bit after the others because he had been on a trip when she first met everyone.  
The man owned a leaner silhouette, soft facial features and big round glasses on his face. But, although he looked cute and innocent, Mike was not someone to be underestimated.   
He was still bigger and way buffier than Steve, plus, Tiana had jokingly warned Nélé once that even if her lover looked as soft as a teddy bear, he was not someone you'd want to get in a fight with.

David, on the other hand, had just acknowledged Nélé with a curt nod. He was the youngest one in the team and was also the one who had had a very hostile reaction upon seeing Steve and her when they first met.   
Things had changed since then though, David had eventually realised that Nélé and Steve were not bad people, and well, if Big J could trust them it, he had no reason not to do the same, right?  
So no, he no longer sen her dirty look, looked at her sideways or telling her off whenever he was upset, but he wouldn't throw himself in her arms either (He was known to be a bit of a tsundere). He still couldn't trust Steve, but he at the very least respected him, besides Nélé tended to act like act a big sister.

They all chatted up until the pause came up, where everyone would get lunch together as they were supposed to.   
Yet, when Nélé received her share of food, she got eagerly pulled away to another room by Faith, followed by Suzy and Tiana, claiming that they needed to have some "girls time".

The girls all seated at the table, but Nélé was the only one touching her food. The three others were just staring at her with expecting shiny eyes.

"What?" Nélé asked them frowning in confusion.  
"You know damn well what, Néné." Suzy started.

"Yeah spill the beans, Néné." Tiana continued, resting her head on top of her crossed hands as Chesire smirk on her face. 

Nélé rolled her eyes at the nickname, she had already told them that she'd rather have them call her by her name (Especially because it meant boobie in french and it sounded ridiculous), but it only them like it even more.   
"About what?" she questioned, taking another piece of food in her mouth.

"Well, did something between and Stevie yesterday night. Were you guys able to bill and coo after we left?!" Faith demanded all excited.

Nélé almost chocked on her food once she gathered what her friend was saying. She had heard the expression from Big J before, if she remembered it correctly, it was supposed to mean something like making out, right?  
"Bill and wha- N, no!!"

"Ah. The English accent is out." Tiana smirked, even more, making her friends giggle and Nélé scowl at them.

"Néné, don't tell me you let on such of an opportunity, and didn't even get a single kiss from the boy !" Faith scold.

"Why would it even happen? Steve and I are just fr- "  
"Don't finish that sentence sweetheart there's more than that between you and him, and everybody knows it." Suzy reprimanded on a firm tone, she almost sounded upset, it was unusual to see her like this, but she cracked a smile when Faith and Tiana took her hand in their own for support.  
It was heartwarming to see how close these free were together.

"I thought," Nélé started swallowing the big lump in her throat, "I don't think Steve likes me like that... I won't deny that I may have feelings for him, but from what I gathered, he probably just sees me as a friend or like he is in charge of me or something." Nélé said, looking down at her fidgeting fingers.  
Faith wanted to protest, but none of the three girls said anything to let her finish her explanations.

"Yesterday, everything seemed to be so perfect. I was so happy to have received these papers, so I prepared a dope ass dinner to announce it, you know?  
When I showed Steve the envelope, he got what was going on right away... And he was so happy that he took me in arms and..." the words started to itch in the back of her throat but stopped to compose herself, She'd get over it. There was no way she could let herself cry over it.  
So the chocolate skinned woman took a deep breath and went on.

"It's just..it just felt right at the moment... At least that's what I thought. He was just so close, guys I'm pretty sure a felt his lips brush mine, but at the very damn last second, he backed out and kissed my cheek instead." She finished, feeling disheartened.  
"Was I to forward? I know we live in e 1940s but still... did I seem too easy ?"

"You didn't do anything wrong, Nélé," Tiana said matter of factly, "It just that our little Stevie is, huh..." She searched the words.

"Well, Steve is an idiot." Faith deadpanned, "I don't know what went through that knucklehead's mind, but I can assure you that he's not playing with your feelings. Something must have happened, Steve always lacked self-confidence whenever he was with ladies."

"Especially when it comes to the love department." Tiana nodded in agreement.  
"What these two meant to say is that Steve is a great guy.   
Our boy may be a bit shy and clumsy, and it would certainly explain his actions, but Lil' Stevie would never hurt you, nor play with your feelings on purpose. In fact, I'm pretty sure it was the opposite that happened." Suzy reassuring said, scooting closer to Nélé to squeeze her shoulder in reassurance.

"Yeh, Stevie is the sweetest person I've ever met," Faith declared. 

"Aw, you really love him, huh?" Nélé half teased.  
"Yeah, I do." she deadpanned.  
"Wait, seriously?" Nélé asked, shocked, " like love, love him kinda way?" 

"Hm, maybe I did at some point..." the African American answered, her words coming out more as a thought than as a statement.

"But you guys never-? why?" Nélé asked before even thinking, "wait, it's none of my business, sorry I didn't mean to-"

"Nah it's fine, it's normal to be curious, and Ben knows so there's no biggy here." Faith reassured the girls.  
"But to answer your question Néné, the reason why nothing ever happened between Steve and myself is probably due to the fact that I've been in love with ben ever since I was eight. I've been dating him since I was sixteen, and I only met Steve when I was already two years deep in my relationship."

"I, I see. Sorry asking something so personal." Nélé apologised looking at the trio sheepishly.

"Nah, again it's good that you ask." Faith waved her off.  
"It means you care" Tania followed nonchalantly.  
"And yes, it's a good thing!" Suzy beamed.

"You're so close to each other, it good to see you all bein' supportive of each other."

"Ah, you sound American again," Tania noted again with a lazy smile.

Nélé just rolled her eyes, but couldn't stop herself from asking, " How did you all meet each other? If I may ask." 

The three looked at each other incredulously, but seeing how genuine Nélé was, Faith started.

"Well, Tania and I are cousins on our ma's side, and Sophie and Tiana met in their teenage years. As for how did steve become friends with all of us?  
Well, it's a pretty long story, you sure you wanna waste your time listening to it? It'll probably take the rest of the pause." Faith asked.  
Nélé responded with a nod looking, interested, so Faith went on.

"I'll try to make it short. You see, if Stevie is can more or less wander around freely in our neighbourhood its mostly because he's friend with brother, and they only became friends because he saved me one time.  
You see, Steve and his friend Buck are probably the only white people we trust. Other than these two, we don't trust white people, and we mostly don't like 'em." Faith said as her face became free of any sign of emotion, while Sophie looked sad, and Tania's expression had become straight-up icy. The room temperature had seemed to have dropped. 

"When we were kids, it used to be just my brother and I. A war that had nothing to do with us stole our parents away from us. Before you ask, no, they didn't go on the field or anything. But, those who stayed here had to compensate to maintain our country's economy. Our parents eventually died from overwork.  
My mother was the first to die when I was eight. My dad followed her in death four years later. He had already lost the will to live when mom left us, but he forced himself to be strong for our sake."  
Faith said she was talking about the sad and hard part of her past, yet her expression only showed how proud she was of her family.

"Once dad died, our uncle wanted nothing to with us, so my brother and I worked hard to survive, working as many jobs as we could. Our goal was to be able to have our own place to work at so we would never have to die because of it like our parents did.  
Tiana and Benjamin would help us with whatever they could, and we had Benjamin's Mom doing her best to help too.  
Years passed, and Jacob, Benjamin, Tiana and I got even closer, and Tiana wanted to be part of our plan. Which lead us to meet our beautiful Suzy other there." Faith smiled fondly at Suzy lowered her eyes with a tiny smile on her face before it crumbled.

"I'm sorry, I know I should be over it but I-" Suzy started to cry, which made her friend come to her to comfort her, and Nélé panic in confusion.  
"Hey, hey, hey, it's okay, I already told you. There's no need for you to feel bad for anything." Tiana answered through Suzy's relentless apologies. They had their forehead pressed against each other, revealing the intimacy of their relationship, and Nélé's heart broke at the sight of it. She knew how hard society was to those who functioned out of the box and the fact fat that they were women and persons of colour, felt like they were digging their own graves. 

Tiana gave Suzy one more reassuring look, and as if they had come into a silent mutual agreement, Tiana then turned her attention back on Nélé with a look full of earnest protectiveness.   
Faith, knowing what she was about to do, put her hand on her cousin's thigh to silently support her. Her story could wait.

"That's right, me and Suzy were lovers," Tiana confirmed with more defensiveness laced in her tone that she intended to. They didn't want to scare Nélé away, but they also felt like they needed her to know.

"She was my first sweetheart, and I'm not scared to say it. You see, Suzy and I both come from "better-off families". But because of that, our parents were obsessed with the idea of being part of the upper class, so just being home tended to be suffocating.   
My family disgusted me, they felt so entitled that they turned their back on my aunt and uncle, because of their social status, and when aunty and uncle died, these decided to no longer acknowledge faith and Jacob as family members, because it would look bad, you know.  
Suzy was the only kid I could relate to, they forced us to be around racist, arrogant brats because of their parents, but she and I hit it off on the spot. Time passed, and our friendship transformed into something more. That's why she and I wanted to be part of their plan of opening a shop, we wanted a place where we could feel accepted, and loved for who we were, no matter who we could love.   
We wanted a family, and we were determined to work our ass off to get it. Eventually, my dad found out about us and confronted me about it. I was already trouble in his eyes, so this was the breaking point.  
I got kicked out and went to Suzy to run away but-"

"But when she showed up at my door, I denied everything, to the point of pretending that I barely knew her! Like the disgusting coward, I was." Suzy interrupted her now friend, spitting the words painfully.

"Now honey, I told you already I don't blame you that I never did, and I never will so stop hurting yourself over it already!" Tiana lost her patience.

"How?! How can I, when I know what went you went through?! You were left on your own, your very own family disowned you, and I, your lover, turned my back on you when you needed me the most! Don't ask me to forgive myself when I don't deserve it!!" Suzy yelled back, her tears showing how broken she had been over it.

" Your father used to beat the damn shit out of you, and your mother up! So no, when you turned your back on me that time, did not hate you for it, I was hurt, but I understood!  
You protected yourself and your mother, that was a survival instinct, Suzy. I can't blame you for that, and I wasn't left to my own, I had the twin who had my back. And on top of it all, you came back to me, didn't you?" Tiana reasoned, wiping Suzy's tears away.

Suzy slowly nodded, her eyes clenching away the last tears she could shed."That 's my girl." Tiana cooed, giving a peck on her forehead.

"My father died of a heart attack, almost a year after the incident happened. My mother and I got through all his antic by sticking through each other side, she and I are inseparable." the light-skinned woman chuckled silently.   
" When he died, she and I were able to restart our lives off of his money. Mother was actually the one who told me that should go and recontact Tiana, I don't know how she knew... but she did, and never hated me for it.   
I went back to meet Tiana, and the others, I expected them to hate me for what I did to their family member, but they welcomed as one of theirs. It was too late for me and Tiana to go back to what we used to be, but having her in my life again, is something I thank the Lord for every single day." She beamed with the softness smile Nélé had ever witnessed from her.  
"Oh, and I'm glad to have you too, Faith." Suzy jocked.  
"Glad to know I wasn't forgotten." Faith laughed back, making Tiana joining them.

"Well, yeah, that's what happened, we worked it out and decided to stay friend, I met Michael, fell in love again and blah blah blah, the rest is boring" Tiana finished as if all of this was nothing.

"And Suzy is still single, but it shouldn't be for long. I've seen the way you look at my brother, young lady." Faith said mischievously, wiggling her eyebrows at the now very embarrassed woman.  
She, on the other hand, just bit her lip in response, there was no point in denying it, it would only aggravate her situation.

"God! Nélé are you okay?!" Faith exclaimed seeing Nélé doing her very best not to explode in tears.   
Her chest was violently rising up and down in an irregular manner, her hands were where clenched so hard knuckles almost actually turned white, and tears still rolled down her face though she was giving everything she had to hold them back.

"S-sorry, it's just you, you guys are so strong, I couldn't hold back anymore," Nélé explained, failing to save herself from breaking down.  
The girls got swayed by her reaction. Sure, the three didn't think that Nélé would react badly to their story, but they didn't expect for her to tear up and cry for them either. Plus, it was they saw Nélé cry ever, so they all went for a group up hug to comfort her, it was funny to see all of them laughing through the tears.

"Okay, do you think you could handle me finishing my story without turning into waterfalls?" Faith teasingly demanded Nélé and Suzy who wiped their tears while nodding.

"And no more sorries, I've heard enough of them for the day. " Tiana added.

"So where was I? Oh yeah, we wanted to open the shop. So after years of work, we were finally able to get the paper from the lawn from the bank and managed to buy this place. And before we could work there, some renovating was need before we could finally open, so I had yet to quit my waitress job.  
It was at a dominantly white restaurant, and I was the only black waitress employee. There were other people of colour working there with me but choose to remain working behind the doors.   
My working days there weren't so bad I even though I had made a waitress friend, ya know?  
But of course, the whole thing had to go completely bananas. Back at the restaurant, there these clients, two-man that would always stare at me during my shift. I knew they hated me right away, but they weren't showing it a lot. They'd just give me nasty looks or mutter thing behind my back every time I'd pass by them.   
Just a few days before I left the job, Katy, a waitress I stupidly thought I was getting along with, asked me to cover her shift for the night. Usually, my brother or ben J would walk me home, they had things they had to deal with that night.   
So when I was on my way so home, I felt weird, like I was being followed like I was not alone. So when I saw two figures tailing me, I knew what was about to happen on the spot.  
I panicked and somehow ended up stuck in a funny alley. These two assholes had been able to corn me. They insulted me, telling all sorts of slurs, yelling at me that I didn't belong in their restaurant, that someone like me should learn where my real place is. Don't need to tell you what those goons were tryin' to do" Fait scoffed in Brooklyn accent, with venom laced in her voice as she was recalling what had happened.

"I tried to cry for help, but nobody that saw me had the guts to come and try to help me, I even got hit by them instead, to try to get me to shut me up.   
But I wasn't not going to let them do whatever they wanted to do with me, and I was not about to die either, so I fought back and kept screamin' for help until somebody would hear me and decided to do something to help.  
That's when Steven Grant Rogers showed up into my life. This scrawny fella came and immediately came to my defence... he got banged up pretty bad, but two-man beating the crap of a guy on the floor and a crazy-ass woman screaming her ass off was enough to draw people's attention and make the two assholes scatter.  
After that, he brought to his place because it was close and insisted on patching me up before even considering to look at his own injuries. The next day, Steve took me back to my brother's place, accompanied by his friend Bucky and they all almost fought again, because the boys assumed the worst when saw me hurt and surrounded by two white men.  
When the situation was explained to them, Jacob and Benjamin expressed their gratitude and told them that they owe them one, while I promised that they'd get their hair cut for half of the price for life. What really marked us though, is that Steve and his friend kept coming back just to check on me, to see I was doing okay, because according to Steven, I went through something "traumatic"... They even helped us with the work in the shop so we could open earlier.   
We were able to open, and a few days later, I recognised a familiar face in front of the shop. It had been Miss Katy, who came crying to apologise to me, saying that she had been threatened by the two bastards to leave work sooner on purpose, so they could have their way with me. The girl was crying about how if she didn't do it, then they would have turned to her, and instead of getting some help, she just decided to turn me over in her place. If it hadn't been for Steve and his friend, I would have beaten the shit out of this bitch, but they showed me that not all white people were that disgusting. I also realised that I didn't want to waste time and energy on uselessly hating her, so I forgave her, but I never wanted to see her ever again. And that's it after that Steve and Bucky stayed friends with us." Faith finally finished her story.

"Oh come on Néné we said we'd stop weeping already." Tiana sighed with a smile.  
"I, I can't help it! That's why I hate crying, on I start it's so fucking hard to stop... I'll cry over everything." Nélé complained, wiping her tears. Suzy immediately went to hug her, she just too adorable.

" Well, girls, the pause is over, it's time to reopen, you finish your food Néné." Faith declared, standing up after looking at the clock.  
As the three hairdressers got into the salon, they welcomed by the boys who apparently had heard their emotional conversation. Mike and Ben J respectively gave hugs to their lovers, leaving Jacob and Suzy standing awkwardly next to each other until Nélé popped up hugging Suzy giving her a goofy big peck on the cheek making Suzy squeal in surprise.  
It made the people laugh and the two "almost lover" release a breath they weren't aware they were holding.

On her walk back home, Nélé was able to take a step back and think about her situation with Steve. She knew liked him and knew that Steve was a great guy, so if anything was supposed to happen between them, it will. She'll just let herself go with the flow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! You've made it until the end of the chapter!   
Thank you for reading it!  
I really enjoyed writing this chapter, it was interesting to develop the story of other characters.   
Maybe I'll right a side story more focused on them.  
Anyway, please feel free to like and especially comment! Criticism is welcomed!   
See ya!


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We're slowly getting the love side of our reader and Steve relationship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a 3000 words-ish chapter, so it should be lighter than the previous one.
> 
> warning: fluff, really fluffy fluff 
> 
> (èwé)
> 
> Enjoy!

On Thursday morning, Nélé carefully left the appartement as quietly as possible to make sure not to wake Steve up.  
She was not avoiding him, but she didn't want to wake him up either since the boy worked a lot, he deserved to get some rest from times to times too.  
She arrived at the shop, 10 minutes earlier than what they had planned, and was greeted nevertheless by her group of friends.  
"I see that you came alone, I was kind of expect Steve to be with you this morning especially for a day like this," Tiana noted, as Nélé took place in her seat.

"Well, I decided to not waking him up this morning, and no, I'm not avoiding him or anything," Nélé quickly added before Faith could slide into their conversation.  
"Is it weird that I kind of wanted to go through this day alone, like a big girl on my own?"

"Nah, it's a good thing, you're a grown woman, Néné. You should be able to do whatever you want without having to tell Stevie before you do it." Tiana responded.

"I agree, being independent is a good thing, maybe a little distance between you is what you need to wake him up," Faith chimed in, as she passed the hot comb through her client's hair.

"So yall telling me to avoid him?" she raised an eyebrow, looking at girls through the window.

"No, you lame-brain," Suzy groaned, " But doing it gives you time to think about yourself, where you wanna stand in your relationship with him."

"I did think about it yesterday, on my way home. Well, at least, I thought about if I really really wanted for something to happen... you know..." 

"And?" Tianda asked.

"Well, I decided to take a step back. Don't get me wrong," Nélé rapidly responded, as she heard groans all over the room.  
"If something happens between us and we both want to become something more, then I'll be all up for it, but I don't want to rush anything if we're not both ready for it." She concluded.

"Good." Tiana and Suzy agree at the same time.  
"Somehow, I'm not sure I'm totally okay this... " Faith expressed. "What's wrong with trying to get into something more. You wanna wait for him to be ready for you to go to the next step, what if he's waiting for the same thing from you?  
You like him, and he likes you, I don't see why you two can't go steady, already. Women can make the first move too, there's nothing wrong with that." Faith huffed a little frustrated, making the older woman she was grooming laugh to herself.

"I never said that it was wrong!" Nélé retorted, " Look, I'm don't plan on stopping pursuing him or anything, but I like how we are with each other right now. If we really like each other, situations like last time will happen again, I just want them to come naturally, is that wrong? " She finished a little worked up. Maybe it was because she was talking about her love life in a room full of random people listening to her. 

"Just let the child be, Faith, she is right anyway." The older lady who was getting her hair done by Faith scolded, swatting the woman thigh like she was a child and her friend who was getting her hair done by Suzy hummed in agreement.

"Ow! But aunty Rose!" She whined while the others laughed at her.  
"Just let her be, you kids are way too impatient nowadays. Taking your time when it comes to love is a good thing. That's how my husband and I are still together. And it's been 40 years!"

"Amen," Tiana responded in agreement, and Faith rolled her eyes.  
"Anyway dear, I'm done with your hair." 

"Wow, it looks amazing! Thanks, Tiana!" Nélé beamed contemplating her hair.

"You have half an hour to get to the diner, but it's pretty close so you should be able to make it in time," Suzy said looking at her watch on the tray of supply that was settled next to her.

"I'd better hurry then, bye everyone!" the freshly groomed girl quickly said, as she exited the place leaving a chorus of goodbye and congratulations behind her.

"You're not going to let it go, huh," Suzy questioned, Faith who was still looking at Nélé disappear into the distance.  
"Nope," Faith popped before flinching to another hit from aunty Rose.

When Steve woke up, it was already well past 10, he had been working more than he's usuals shifts and with Nélé around in his life, the boy hadn't realised how much he needed to rest until his waking up.  
As he was looking around, Steve took notice of how quiet the apartment was and noticed that the curtains were still shut.  
That's when Steve realised what was going on, thinking that she was still asleep, Steve rushed out of bet to barge in Nélé's room, but he was met to an empty room and a neatly folded bed.  
Not hearing anything from the bathroom, Steve realised that Nélé must have left without him, which upset him for a bit.  
It was supposed to be an important day, he had wanted to be here for her. Looking at the time, the boy sighed in disappointment and prepared to go to his own job.

Nélé arrived at the diner a couple of minutes before 1pm, she apprehensively entered the dinner that looked quite full mostly because it was lunchtime.  
Nélé approached the counter, where a pretty ginger headed woman was wiping glasses, and mechanically chanted the chorus she was so used to repeat whenever she heard the bell from the front door ring.  
"Good morning, good day and good evening! Welcome to Billy's. What is it that I can do for you today?"  
"Hi, my name is Nélé, I'm here for the waitress job," she hesitantly replied.

The woman in front of her lit up at the sound of her words, "Oh heavens, thank you! Please follow me, Betty!!" she loudly called a waitress that was cleaning a table a little further.

"What?!" the light black haired woman replied just as loud not lifting her head off her task.  
"Take over the counter for me, will ya!"  
" Alright..."

"Hurry up now... Miss Nélé, right ?"  
"huh? yes" The African European woman hurried her pace.

They skipped through the kitchen room as the ginger woman in front of her was rambling "You don't know how happy I am to see you here. We've missing staff since forever, and at some point, I thought the boss was never gonna hire anybody. Anyway, my name is Sandra, I've been working in this hole for 3 years straight now, and I'll be the one showing you how it works here. Ah! Right, this is the locker room. Here's your uniform, this one should fit ya, get changed fast, your starting right away. Any questions?" Sandra cheerfully blurted, her train of sentences running over the poor Nélé who only blinked at her the uniform in hands.  
"huh, nice to meet you?"

Steve got inside the barbershop and flinched at the nasty ass glare Faith sent him as soon as she saw him.  
The dirty blond sighed and not wanting to get into any confrontation, he just turned to Suzy asking her about Nélé.

"Well, lucky for you Nélé did call to relay a message to you, but unfortunately she has it," Suzy apologetically said, jerking her head towards Faith, who was remaining with her arms crossed and her lips put into a tight line.  
The two intensely stared at each other before Faith furiously pulled a piece of paper out of her apron and proceeded to read in anger.

"Please tell Steve that work ends at eight tonight, he doesn't need to come and get me though, I'll do just fine. Lods of kisses Nél."  
The boy slumped in an empty chair as the brown skin woman stomped her way over to him.  
He had a hunch, but the woman really must have been avoiding him.

"As stupid as I think it is no, "Nel", is not avoiding you."  
"Pretty much looks it's like the opposite to me."  
"And I'm pretty sure it's because of that stupid ass judgmental ability of yours that, you ended chickening out on my girl."

"She told you about too... great." steve grumbled, "What was I supposed to do, kiss her and having regretting it all the next minute?"

"Oh, you're right! Dumping her last at the minute, and leaving all confused 'cause of your stupid mixed signals like that is so much better!" She sarcastically retorted. "Man up, Rogers! You'll be a real sap if she gets swooped by somebody else!"

"I'm sorry big fella, but I'm on Lil' sis side on this one. If you wanna wait it's fine but wait for too long and you'll bite your own hand off for it." Big J calmly advised, and discouraged Steve even more. He had totally blown it this time, huh.

"Now, don't listen to them Stevie, you did nothing wrong, you guys only met like, huh, what? Two months ago?  
We all know how serious you are when it comes to love, you have all the rights in the world to want to protect yourself.  
These people are just hungry dogs, there's nothing wrong in wanting to take your time in getting into a relationship. And, Nélé doesn't hate you, she just wants to be more independent, isn't she allowed to do so?" Suzy pointed out in contradiction to the twins' opinion.

"Does it means I should just wait for at her home?" Steve asked the group.

"Hell, Nah!" burst the old Jeffrey, making the whole group jump.

"Weren't ya sleepin', old man?" A scared Mike asked a hand over his chest.

"If I had let wife on her own on important days like this one, I would have a wife at all! Listen to me good son, today is an important day for her, right? Then she'll want to have you by her side. If you all got beef going on between you, then talk it out. That's all there is to it."

"Preach" Tiana finished on the old man's words.

The rest of the day went out better than Nélé had expected. Sandrah was surprisingly surprised by how efficient Nélé was.  
She had a did have part-time jobs before, but it sure was a different experience. The customers were different, it was the forties so even though she was fluent in English, sometimes it was kinda hard for her to get a grasp of what they were saying, the rudeness of some of them had unfortunately remained the same, though. 

Her coworkers turned out to be surprisingly friendly, the boss was the chief cook of the restaurant though he appeared to be some grumpy middle-aged bear looking, bald man, he was actually a very gentle person according to his daughter Betty.

Nélé was busy clearing and cleaning some dirty tables when she recognised a familiar meagre figure entering the diner place.  
A wide smile immediately made its way across her face as she trodded her way to the lost looking puppy.

Steve nervously looked around he went inside the diner trying to find Nélé, and he was now starting to regret it. Maybe he should have just waited for Nélé at home. What if she was actually mad him and just said that she wasn't to cause drama or-

"Hello, Good morning, good day and good evening! Welcome to Billy's. My name is Nélé, is there anything I can do for you today?"  
Steve's eyes suddenly met gleeful ones.  
At least she didn't seem mad at him from the contagious smile she was wearing. 

"Wonders, what are you doing here?" she asked more excited than she anticipated.  
the skinny boy seemed to be lost in thought for a minute, but he was cut off by the sound of Sandra clearing her voice as she suddenly appeared behind her, so Nélé quickly got into her worker persona.  
"Hum, would you like me to settle a table, sir?" 

"Y-yes, just for one, please."

"Alright then please follow me."

She placed Steve at a table by the window, but it was in the corner of the room so she could talk to him without drawing attention to them. Nélé carefully handed a menu to the blond as she was still under the staring gaze of her senior before notifying him that she'd go fetch him some water, to Sandra's satisfaction.

It took her a couple of minutes to come back with a jar full of it, and as she poured him a glassed, Nélé start started to question him, now that she could finally talk to him free off curious stares.

"So what are you doing here? Didn't receive my little message?"

"I did, but I still wanted to be here, at least for today. I know you wanted to be alone, but is it okay if I walk you home? " Steve asked. He looked so hopeful, everything about him was silently begging for her to say yes, the look in eyes, his nervous posture as he slowly lowered his face hiding behind his hair, getting ready for her refusal.  
How in the world was she supposed to say no to this? She thought for a second, weighing the pros and cons before giving in.  
"I still have at least an hour before I get off work, you sure wanna bother waiting for little 'ole me? "  
"Of course!" Steve bashfully replied without missing a beat, which let them both surprised by his quick reaction.

"Okay, big boy, is there anything I can give you in the meantime, how about a cuppa java? " Nélé bounced onto a topic, doing everything thing in her willpower to not laugh. "See I'm learning new words here, gimme a couple of months and be speakin' Brooklyn better than you, pal." the new waitress winked.  
"Sure, you will, doll. " Steve chuckled gaining some confidence back, "and yes a cup of joe, 'd be swell too."

"A cuppa what?"  
"It means coffee too, Doll," Steve laughed a little harder shaking his head.

"Oh, I see, I'll be right back with it then, " Nélé replied, happy that her complexion couldn't show whether she was blushing or not. 

"I see you got yourself a little sweetheart" Betty smug voice rung behind Nélé as she was handling the coffee machine.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Nélé replied while making sure she does her thing right.

"Oh, so you weren't just flirting with the little blond guy over there?"

"Girl, get your eyes checked, Steve and I are just friends." Nélé playfully rebutted feeling embarrassed that even a 16 years old kid was able to see through her like that. Steve was maybe transparent when it came to love, but she was pretty damn sure she wasn't, wasn't she? 

"It always starts like with these words "He's just friend". Then next thing we know, you're busy doing a little backseat bingo- Ouch!!"  
the teenager flinched rubbing her arm where Nélé had hit her. 

"Why don't you go take care of those clients at the door instead of taking crazy, huh? They have been waiting for a while now, haven't they?" The now very embarrassed older waitress whispered shout adding a cupcake on the coffee tray, before running away, to finally get rid of it.

The rest of the evening passed smoothly as well, Sandra even let Nélé out a little earlier, she judged that she had received enough teasing  
for the day.  
When Nélé came out of the diner place form the backdoor, the girl was welcomed by a long and chilly breeze, telling her that the summer was going to come to an end soon.  
Steve jogged to her as soon as he got a glimpse of her walking out of the backdoor alley. The walk had been quite, mainly because the streets seemed to be free of its daytime commotion, though Nélé wasn't sure whether walking on such empty streets was a good thing or not.

Besides, the two didn't talk much either, expect when Steve draped his jacket over Nélé's shoulder as shivered from the blowing again. Even after that, they still remained walking in silence, but the awkward tension was replaced by a calm and intimate one as they were now walking closer than usual.  
The minute Steve opened their apartment, the black-skinned woman launched herself in steve bed/couch, and let out a dramatic exhausted sigh.

"I don't think I can make another step anymore. Today's been so Ioong, I must look like a real mess right now."Nélé tiredly mumbled, dragging her hands over her face as she rolled onto her back.

"I think you beautiful," Steve responded, as soon as Nélé finished her words from the spot he was standing.  
"I mean, in your uniform, as a waitress. I mean, you're always beautiful, to me, all the time..."

Nélé exhaled one more time before sitting up, " Steven, come here." the woman demanded, extending her arms towards him.

"Closer."

He was now nervously standing right in front of her, trying not to look into her eyes but getting lost into them anyway. In his eyes, there was no doubt that Nélé wanted to talk about what had happened the day tow days before, and Steve had no idea of what to say nor what to do. So he just shut up braced himself for the worst.  
It wouldn't be the first time anyway.  
He was ready for her to be straight with him and tell him she wasn't interested in him in the first place, but Steve just felt a pair of hands grasping his own, gently tugging them downwards.

"You're too high right now, I can't talk to you like this." Nélé oh-so-softly smiled, or was it because she was so tired?  
Steve listened to her whiny demand and lowered himself to her eye level. She continued to gaze into his eyes, and at some points, Steve started to feel more relaxed as he was starting to losing himself in hers.

In fact, Steve felt so much at ease while looking at her, that when Nélé swiftly cast a peck on his lips, it literally took him a few seconds to register what had just happened.  
The blond eyes slowly grew in the realisation of it. Nélé had kissed him. On the lips.

"This... is kind of how I thought our conversation would end last time..." Nélé started biting her lower lip while looking at the floor.  
She waited for him to say something, but he didn't.  
So after throwing a few glances at his frozen face, she went on, "and you hated it, great."

"I didn't. Sorry, I was definitely surprised, I still am, but I didn't hate it, it was just really unexpected?" Steve blurted out, suddenly remembering how to speak. Man, he could feel his heart going a thousand miles a second and breathing was starting to get harder and harder, but Steve tried to hide as much as possible he wanted to be at least able to explain himself to her. He owed it to her.

But yeah, there were times like this when he was not the boss of his body, he tried to stutter some words out, but his lungs had decided against it. Soon Steve was turned into a coughing and wheezing mess.  
Damn it was embarrassing, as he put a hand over his chest to try to calm himself down, Nélé quickly ran to his desk drawer to pull out the inhaler and help out of his crisis. 

"This suck," Steve managed to complain once his body had calmed down.

"Hey, don't blame yourself for that. If anything, I should be the one apologizing... Is this the reason why you kissed my cheek instead of last time? I had the feeling we were going to kiss, like, not there..." She finished asking, mentally hitting herself for being so cringy. 

"You don't have to apologise for how weird my body is. And to be honest with you, I don't really know what to answer you...  
That time I, I didn't even think something this could've happened. I like you Nel, a lot." Steve said, finding the courage to look at her with all the sincerity he could muster to show. 

"I did want to kiss you back then, it's just... it's just that at the very last second, I just didn't feel it was right... like, I had lost all sort of confidence in my body, what if I get asthma attacks whenever we kiss or whenever we tried to do anything more? We only met a couple months ago, wouldn't you get tired of a weak and skinny guy like me? I just wasn't ready for it..."  
Steve poured his heart out, hoping that Nélé would understand.

"I like you too, Steven Grant Rogers..." Nélé smiled, looking at her feet to help her focus on her words.  
"I really, really like you a lot. And no, I don't think I would nor could get tired of you, you're a wonderful and really handsome person, Wonders. But, if you say that you don't feel ready to be in a relationship, then it fine, and it's totally okay. Just, is it okay if I wait for you to be ready?" She asked with the littlest spark of hope she was hanging onto.

"Yeah, I think it's okay..." Steve meekly smiled at her, he did want more with Nélé, it just didn't feel right for him to throw himself in a relationship with his current state of mind. "It's definitely okay," Steve assured her, resting his forehead against her. Yeah, he definitely wanted to get there.

"Can I ask you one more thing?" Nélé voiced, barely louder than a whisper, as she grabbed his hand again.

"Yeah, what is it?"

"Can I get one more kiss?" 

"Sure" The boy happily replied, putting his lips on hers on more time.  
The kiss being bolder than the previous one. Steve could feel Nélé lips slowly moving against his own deepening it, and he gladly returned the favour keeping the same pace as her. However, steve eventually removed himself from Nélé's lips as he needed to grasp some air, and mirrored the breathtaking smile she displayed before him.

Yep, Steven definitely needed to be ready.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I did say that it was gonna be slow but worry, we'll get there ;)


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: flirt, nakedness, fluff, mention of violence, vocabulary etc...
> 
> I think that's about it, but yeah.  
This chapter was going to be too long so I decided to cut it in half, 5000-ish words is long enough in my opinion.
> 
> Enjoy!

The next morning, Steve and Nélé were pleasantly surprised to notice that things weren't awkward between them like they were expecting it to be.   
It was probably because they both were too tired from the sheer lack of sleep they had after what had happened the night before, but only lazy smiles and small conversation were shared that morning.   
The two friends even walked to work together for a bit as their jobs place were in the same direction.

And just like this, life had taken back its course, Steve and Nélé were now even closer to each other, but they weren't anything more than good friends, much to their friends' annoyance.  
At first, it was just Faith and Jacob complaining about it, but then, another two months and a half passed and nothing had changed between them, so it was starting to get on everybody's nerves.  
It's not even like the two love birds were trying to hide their feelings or anything, they just wouldn't dare take the next step, spurting out the same type of argument: "but things are going on so well now... what if it ruins everything?" god help them.

It was still very frustrating that they wouldn't do anything about their relationship, during that whole month and a half, Nélé and Steve had gotten to learn other aspects of their personalities, not really pleasant ones at that, and yet they both claimed to their friends that their feelings for each other hadn't changed.

During these two months and a half, a lot had happened, for example; Nélé witnessed Steve coming back home from the aftermath of a brawl for the first time, which led them later to have their first real argument too.

It had happened a couple of weeks after Nélé had gotten her job, a waitress. The two of them couldn't see as often as they used to and when they did, they were just too tired to have a real human interaction.   
One night, Nélé was on her way home a little later than usual. She was a bit of a hurry because Steve and she had planned to spend the evening together since he was supposed to finish around 4pm and her only two hours later. It was one of those rare occasions when their schedules matched. Unfortunately, the boss sent Sandra for a last-minute errand, so Nélé had to cover for her in the meantime before she could go home.  
So there she was, toddling off the street, her coat over her head because of the sudden rain.   
Nélé still in the middle of hurrying, when she heard groaning and the noise of falling trash cans coming from a small dark alley.  
As she walked in front of it she a small silhouette leaning onto the wall before sliding off it. She thought about the situation for a minute and quickly looked around before going to the person's help. Her non-date with Steve would just have to be for another day.  
She carefully approached the person on the floor, only to be shocked when she recognised them.

"Hm, excuse me? Are you okay? Can you hear me? Sweet Jesus, Steve?!!"

"...Hey, doll..."  
"God, what happened to you?!"  
" 'kinda had to fight two bastards who were trying to mug some lady- " The wet blond tried to explain, but his words were interrupted as he got caught in a fit of coughing.

Steve was in a disastrous state, he was half-laying on the floor holding his stomach with one arm, while his other one was resting over a trash can. 

He wore cuts and bruises all over his face, the blood from his injuries mixing itself with the rain, and one of his eyes was definitely going to turn into a magnificent blackeye.   
Just from seeing the way the boy was barely able to stand, Nélé could easily visualise how bruised his body must be, and it broke her heart to pieces. She could feel the tears threatening to run free down her cheeks but now was not the time for a breakdown.   
The man she loved needed to get his wounds tended, he needed to get a warm drink, he needed a hot bath, and he needed to get out of his drenched clothes as soon as possible.  
God, in this state and under this weather, the boy was destined to get sick from it. 

Shaking her head to put herself together quickly, Nélé put her coat over the blond's head while ignoring the coolness of the weather, and Steve's complaining and helped him on his feet. 

"I don't need your coat Nel, it's cold, you should be wearing it."  
" Shush, it's not like you can wear it at the moment. Right now, you need it more than I do, Do you think you could walk? "

Steve slightly nodded and let his arm getting hooked over her shoulder. Nélé tentatively took a few steps to see if he actually was able to walk, which he thankfully was and started heading toward the apartment. 

The two walked in silence, as they did, Nélé remained particularly careful of every step they took.  
While walking, the woman tried hard to keep herself together, but eventually wasn't able to hold back and let silent tears running down her face tangling with the drops of the rain, hoping that he would not notice her them. 

They entered their apartment, and Nélé immediately helped him to sit on his couch. She then started running all over the place, fetching for her bags, clean towels and opened the bathtub taps to let the hot water fill it.  
After that, the brown woman returned to Steve's side, who was drying his hair with the towel she had tossed him earlier. She crouched down in front of him and rummaged through her bags before pulling out some betadine Coton and a placket of Doliprane, Nélé looked at what she had pulled out thinking about what she should do first, before shifting her gaze up to meet with Steve's who staring at her.

"Take your clothes off."

"What?" 

"I said, take your clothes off, I need to check your injuries. Take 'em off." Nélé stressed as calmly as she could.

The man stared at the woman for a minute as if she was crazy, before reluctantly unbuttoning his shirt. Nélé sucked in her breath as she saw his exposed. He was still wearing his undershirt, but it was mostly transparent and clinging to his frail body, revealing all the bruises that covered him, some being darker than others. 

Nélé didn't say anything and plunged back her head in her bags looking for the creams she had to treat them. She felt like breaking down again, yet felt like she didn't the right to. Steve was the one hurting after all, not her.

"It's not as bad as it looks." Steve broke the silence his voice coming out cracked and low.

"Are you bruised from the waist down too?", Nélé asked since he still had his wet pants on. She knew that did, judging from how he couldn't even walk on his own, but she didn't want to lose her temper listening to him justify himself.

"I'm going to check to check the water for the bath, don't touch anything," she stood up as soon as Steve slowly nodded, to avoid hearing anything else from him.

Seconds after, Steve heard the sound of the running water stop. Nélé emerged out of the bathroom and headed directly to her room.   
Steve was feeling bad for putting her through this, but he did not regret fighting the two guys, he couldn't.   
Steve was formulating an explanation in his mind but was interrupted by the sound of the door brutally opening. He watched her approaching him in his shirt and pants, her now puffed hair out face, and another towel in her hand.

"Okay, we need to clean your wounds and get your muscles to relax, so you don't hurt too much tomorrow, so first, you need to take a bath. Take it all off, and cover yourself with this.."

"Wha, no!" Steve protested, he felt embarrassed enough from having to remove his shirt in front of her earlier, there was no way in he was gonna let bathing him as if he just a little kid.

"You can barely move, Steve. Let alone walk, so just do it, so I can help you get to the bathroom," Nélé pointed out a little more urgently, crossing her arms.

""I'm not doing it. I can go to the bathroom on my own, thank you."Steve defensively retorted, Crossing his arm as well. 

"How, though? You're gonna crawl your way there?"

"If I have to."

"You're being unreasonable."

"You think?"

"Just stop acting like a child and take your clothes off, Steve. I won't look, if that what you're so worried about-"

"I'm not having you do that! It's already embarrassing enough to have you nursing me like this. I know I 'm weak already, but I 'd like to keep the small piece of my pride I have left!" Steve shouted, he already knew how weak his body was on a day to day basis, he knew it already, so he didn't need her babying him to remind it to him, especially in a moment like this, Steve didn't like to depend on others.

"I just wanted to help you... You know what, this is absolutely not how I thought we would spend the night, Steve" Nélé finally cracked, letting her feelings overflow.  
"I know that you did, what you did for a probably good reason, mais putin, Steve! J'étais super inquiète! How do you think I felt when I saw you back then in the alley? How fuckin' helpless do you think I felt back then? How do you think I feel now!?" She screamed back switching from English to French and letting all the held back panic, sadness and anxiety pour out of her heart.

"What if I hadn't found you in that alley, Steve? ...I could have lost you, wonders..." She finished in a murmur, feeling herself shivering at the thought. 

"No, you wouldn't," Steve replied painfully pulling on the shirt she was wearing to get her to get closer, "I'm sorry I put you through so much worry, but I don't regret fighting for something right. It's just that... I've never been so vulnerable in front of someone that was not Bucky...It's very new for me." Steve tried to explain the best he could. 

"It's very new for me too..." Nélé responded, kneeling to rest her forehead against his, "I'm sorry I let my panic get the best of me like this."

" 's okay, I wasn't your fault anyway," Steve stroked her face in reassurance, softly smiling at her.

The two let the beat of their heart lead their actions resulting in them sharing a quick, chaste kiss on each other's lips. Steve could feel Nélé smile against his lips. They knew it didn't mean that they'd force themselves to date just because of it.

"You still, have to get a bath though..." Nélé smiled as she pulled away, causing Steve to groan for these two reasons.

"Here's what we're gonna do, I'm going to help you get in the bathroom so you can clean up on your own. I'll only help with your hair and back. All you'll have to do is keeping your underwear, so things don't get too awkward. Does it sound good to you?" She proposed.

"I guess I could work with that..."

"Perfect, then. Let's hurry up though, wouldn't want the water to get cold," Nélé said, standing on her feet again.

She led him to the bathroom, letting him rest on the edge of the bathtub.  
"Alright, you can take it from here, make sure to soak properly, and clean as many wounds as you can. Call me when you're done, I'll wash your hair and back." Nélé specified before running away unintentionally slamming the door.

"Thanks!" Steve voiced through the door which her back was resting on. Nélé titled her head back, feeling her face burning. Her heart was beating like crazy just from doing this little, and yet, she had the audacity to think that could have given Steve a whole MF BATH like she was his mom or something, she really really needed to bring her ass back down to earth.

"N'importe quoi Nélé, reprends toi," she shook her head. She then proceeded to make some chicken and vegetables, and then went back to check all of the healing supplies and medicines she had pulled out earlier, hoping that it would help calm her nerves down. 

When she thought she was finally calming down, her heart stopped, and her body stiffened as she heard Steve calling for her from the bathroom. Nélé responded to his call trying to sound as casual as she could, before standing up to join him.   
Nélé stood in front of the bathroom door for a second, took a deep breath, shook her hand to prevent them from trembling any longer and determinedly opened the door. 

Steve was a nerve-wracked state of mind, and to be honest, what was happening kind of felt unreal to him. He did as Nélé had so firmly instructed and let his battered body soak in the still-hot water.  
He flinched as the water came in contact with the cuts on his arms and legs. Steve was now hyper-aware of everything that was going on with his body. Everything was throbbing to a rhythm that matched his heartbeat, and the boy couldn't help but grimace as and groan at the pain.  
It stung, and burned, every part of his body was screaming in pain, begging him to get out of that tub and bow something cold on it, but the blond almost got used to it after a moment. 

Don't get him wrong, the pain was still here, but there was something comforting coming from the warmth of the water, it helped him get his mind wander, and rest for a moment.   
Well, he was resting, until Steve remembered that the girl he liked was supposed to come and help him wash his back, and shampoo his her and Steve was back into his panicky-nervous state. Great.

Steve was supposed to be the one calling her in, so he at least had that under his control. The power to prepare his mind and body for what was about to unfold in a couple of minutes.  
The boy looked down at his figure and sighed, feeling a wave of insecurity washing over him. This was definitely not the kind of body you'd want to show to the girl you like, nor anybody else for that matter. Somehow under water, his body seemed to be even more skinny and frail than what it ordinarily looked like.   
The bruised, dirt and cuts didn't help either, it usually gave the guys in the movies a mad look, but with him, it only did the opposite.

The last thing Steve wanted was to scare Nélé away, but with his current look, the only thing he could do was hope for the best, so he tried to arrange his appearance the best that he could.  
Taking his bath cloth, Steve started to clean every inch of his body, hissing through the pain as he tried his very best to ignore it. He dived himself in the water several times and pulled his hair back, exposing his forehead before deciding against it and ruffling them.  
After taking several deep breaths, Steve decided that he was gonna be now or never and called out for Nélé who quickly responded.

His feet were nervously fidgetting in the water as he waited for her to come inside the room. Steve's body instantly winced at the sound of the door opening but didn't make any move to turn in her direction.

Nélé carefully entered the bathroom, closing the door softly, before being face to face with Steve's back, the sight of his frail body covered with bruises made her flinch.

The woman carefully approached Steve, her face unable to hide an expression, that to him looked like a mix between disgust and pity. Steve was disappointed, but not surprised, it was the reaction he had been expecting anyway.

"I-I'm going to wash your back first if you don't mind..." she stuttered nervously, going for the bath cloth.  
Nélé tried to give Steve a comforting smile but frowned when she did get any response from him. 

"Okay, that's it," she stopped her track and sat on the edged of the tub to face him, "how do you do it?"

"Do what ?"

"Do you not feel pain? I feel bad just by looking at you!" Nélé exclaimed, which only mad Steve frown feeling offended.

" Well, I didn't ask you to do it...Sorry that I'm so disgusting to look at." Steve seethed coldly lowering his head, cursing that his locks were stuck on his forehead.

"What? Oh, no! I didn't- no, no, no, no, no, no!" Nélé sputtered totally taken aback.

"Steve," Nélé surprised him by grabbing his face in both of her hands, "Steven Grant Rogers, you are NOT disgusting to look at. You're the opposite! You're handsome and sexy as hell, so don't you EVER disrespect my taste in men like that, or I'll be the one you'll get in a fight with next, got it ?!"

The now redfaced boy slowly nodded in her hands, a meek smile drawing itself on his face.

"Good, because I'm don't think I have the energy to fight." Nélé sighed suddenly relaxing.  
"Look, what I meant to say earlier is not what you were thinking about... I don't like blood and cuts and all of that. I can't stand them at all, and I have a hard time just by looking at them.   
I get second thoughts about taking a shower whenever I get the smallest scratches. Yet, here you are, entirely covered in bruises, entirely soaking in hot water as if it was nothing. How do you do that?!" blurted bewildered.

"Don't laugh, you jerk! Oops, sorry."

"Nah it's fine, I deserved it... Thanks, Nélé." Steve thanked sincerely.

"Don't mention it," She smiled back at him "so, shall we get started, Mr Rogers?"

"Sure."

Nélé placed herself back behind Steve, trying not to be too mindful of the situation, and finally started to get to work. She brushed his back in silence, being careful of not apply too much pressure to avoid inflicting him any more pain. But the silence only made them more uncomfortable as the seconds passed. Nélé wasn't able to get her mind off the fact that she was scrubbing a very much almost naked Steve, and he tried his very best to deflect his attention from the fact he could feel her fingers brushing against his own skin. The more silent they stayed, the thicker the tension would grow, so Nélé cracked.

"Okay, so I'm gonna need you to speak young man, 'cause I don't know about you, but I can't stand the tension right now. And I know you can feel it too," Nélé spoke out, without stopping her movement.

"What am I supposed to say, then?" Steve asked in a mixture of relief, amusement, and confusion.

"I don't know... anything! Whatever goes through your head, the stress is just killin' me right now."

"How was your day?" Steve blurted out, flinching when she poured water on his back.

"Really? How was my day? That's what you want to talk about?" 

"Well, you said whatever comes through my head, right?"

"Hugh, well... It was mostly a good day. I mean, if count out the part were I found you in the trash half-conscious in the trash. My day actually pretty nice, there was no racist customers at work, which does not happen often, my coworkers were cool, I had TWO cheeseburgers for lunch and a doughnut, and I was looking forward hanging out with you this evening. I enjoyed my day, I still am right now actually." nélé reasoned, she was shampooing Steve's locks.

"Well, that good."

"Your turn now, how was your day, wonders?" 

"It was normal. I went to work, ate my lunch, then to the hospital to get my meds... you know same olds. "the man said, not really wanting to dwell on the topic.  
"At least I'm glad that you're enjoying washing me up. I mean you were so persistent, and all..." Steve finished on a teasing note.

"You're making it sound like I'm a pervert!" Nélé scoffed scrubbing a little harder to get back at him, "right now, I'm in my purest state of mind, and boy you don't want to meet the pervert me..."

"I'm sure she's not that bad." steve playfully smiled, slightly turning to her.

"Oh no, she's not," she mischievously slipped her hand along his torso and torso making him freeze in shock and whispered in his ear, "but I don't think you're ready for her yet," she finished by nibbling lightly on his ear, making the blond gasp and her hollering in laughter.

"I told you so didn't I?!" Nélé laughed dumping water over his head after a quick warning.

"That was mean," Steve mumbled to himself, embarrassed.

" Nah, it was well deserved, Steven." Nélé shot back as she exited the bathroom, leaving Steve all hot and bothered, as she was leaving.  
As Nélé came out of the bathroom, she rushed to the kitchen and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that the soup hadn't burnt down. After stopping the stove, Nélé then set two bowls of soup on the kitchen table and waited for Steve to join her in the living room, which the boy did once he was fully clothed again.

He sat along with her on the flood and Nélé finally tend his wounds, disinfecting them and put putting bandaid over them. She then applied some pain-relieving cream over his bigged and darkest bruises on his back and stomach before getting up fetch hit his bowl of soup, a glass of water and pills on a tray.

Steve looked up at her in slight confusion at the sight of a pill that he didn't recognise besides his usual one. 

"This is Doliprane, it helps against pain and fever. it's a 500g pill so it should be alright with you, gave you some water to drink it but make sure you eat first," the french pointed at his chicken soup and piece of bread.

"What about you aren't gonna eat anything?" Steve asked a little concerned as he thanked her for the food.  
In response, Nélé grinned and stood up quickly only to be back and sit on the floor with her own tray of soup next to him. They ate comfortably talking and laughing at whatever the other was talking about before Steve decided to speak.

"Thank you, Nel." Steve earnestly thanked her.

"What for? I didn't do anything." She gently smiled in response.

"No, you deserve to be thanked for what you did for me, and I feel like owe you a proper explication. I was walking on my way home after buying some stuff, then I saw two men trying to mug a woman and her kid in a small alley, and when I saw it, I couldn't just ignore them, you know? I knew that it gonna be a two against one fight, but at least by doing so, their attention was on me, and the woman and her son could run away.  
You are the first person here out of my mom or Bucky to see me like this and not turning your back on me. Usually, just by looking at me, people decided not to associate themselves with me because I look so weak, but you're different, you've seen through y worse no matter how embarrassing it is and still stay by my side. So, thank you Nélé, it means a lot to me."

Nélé just stayed there with bid eyes and a small smile, she didn't know what to say, she only did what she thought was right anybody seeing their loved ones, would have done the same, right.  
But she's her cotta of emotional sharing speech so just settle on these words.  
"I don't really know what to say to you... So just promise me one thing, promise me you will at least try to avoid the fights for me. I know it's hard, especially in situations like these, but please do it for me. "

"I promise."

And that was supposed to be the end of it, but of course, it would be too easy.  
That night, Steve broked into a fever just as she feared, she had insisted that he slept in the bedroom in her stead, but he wouldn't accept her offer no matter what. Having a lingering bad feeling about it, Nélé decided to check on steve and make sure he was alright, but found panting and sweating a lot in his sleep.

Nélé spent the significant part her night trying to break his fever down, but no avail. She called his job to prevent them that Steve would not be able to attend to work and was happily surprised by how understanding they were of the situation. Steve has been working for them for a few years now, so it's probably expected. Unfortunately, Nélé wasn't as lucky and had to go to work. Steve had assured her that it was alright and that he'd do fine on his own, but Nélé couldn't feel totally at ease. Once she got to work, she asked her boss if it was possible to rearrange her hours for the rest of the week, and promised that she'd make up for it on the following one.   
Her boss also showed himself to be understanding and let her get off work earlier. Steve's fever didn't get any better for the next two days. He spent them sleeping most of the time as he was too tired to do anything else. Whenever he would try to get up and help Nélé, he'd feel so dizzy that at some point she had begged him to just stay in bed. The medicines she used on him were much better than what he had home, but he still hated all the attention and overly worried she was for him.   
I just made him feel helpless, which he wasn't. That's what Steve had the bad habit of not relying on others, he just couldn't stand feeling so weak, and pain of his prior injuries didn't help at all.

By the following Monday, Steve had fully recovered and assured Nélé that he was feeling well enough to go back to work. Things seemed to have calmed down for a bit, Steve did act a little distant from Nélé, but she brushed it off. She had to catch up for the missing working hours of the previous week, so her time home and interacting with steve had significantly reduced and so had his since he had to catch up for his missing days too.

However, one evening, Steve returned back home later than usual, with a cut lip. When Nélé noticed about it, Steve quickly dismissed the subject assuring her that it was nothing to worry about and claimed to be too tired to talk about it.  
The week after that, the blond came home with a bright red mark on his cheek, but once again, he refused yo talk about it.  
And his face only got worse by the end of the week.  
Nélé had wanted to confront him about it since the beginning, but Steve always acting so indifferent about it and pushing her away from him, went from slightly upsetting her to straight-up piss her off.

So when Steve got home on that Sunday with busted knuckles and a freshly new bruised nosed, the African woman inwardly snapped.  
As the man briefly entered the kitchen to greet Nélé and avoid any sort of interrogation, Steve was surprised by only receiving a side-eyed condescending look and a kiss-teeth sound out of Nélé instead of her usual worried behaviour.  
Steve knew he was going to regret asking, but he still did anyway.

"Is everything alright?" the blond tentatively asked.

"I don't know, Steve, is it?" Nélé bitterly responded, "Oh, no, wait. It's nothing for me to worry about, right?"

"Nel..." Steve slowly sighed, not liking where this was going, but the ebony woman cut him first.

"Or better yet it's none of my business either, right?" 

"It's not like that!" Steve replied louder than what he had anticipated.

"Then what is it ?!" Nélé retorted matching his tone.

Steve remained silent at her question, unnerving her even more " Do you want me out of your life?"

"Wha- No!"

"Did you promise me that you'd stop fighting just so I'd be off your back? Then why the fuck do you come home looking like this not even a week after you're finally supposed to be healed?  
Is this your way of telling me to fuck off?! " Nélé harassed him question after question, not let him the chance to place a word this irritating him even more as well.

"No! I already told you, it's not like that?! Can't you understand what I'm saying for once?! I already told you that, and if I see a situation that's bad, I can't just ignore it and do nothing! I know you think I'm too weak to fight for myself, but I'm not! I'm not forcing you to take care of me anyway, I can take care of myself just fine, so just leave alone!" He screamed back. 

A silence placed itself between them, Nélé stood shocked by the words he lashed at her, as steve was panting heavily from his outburst. He may have gone too far but couldn't stand Nélé's overbearing worries and action whenever he'd do even something small such as sneezing. He was a grown-ass man, and she needed to realise it.   
Steve was expecting Nélé to shout something back at him, but instead, she just threw whatever she was holding in the sink and stormed toward the bedroom.

"What are you doing?" Steve asked before she could disappear.

"Well, you wanted me to leave you alone, so that's what I'm doing." The woman answered on a calm and icy tone before slamming the door shut behind her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh Stevie, Stevie, Stevie, when will you understand that our reader cares about you *sigh*   
I don't about y'all but I'm getting tired of this two not being a couple so I'll try to make it happen in two chapters, does it sounds good to you ?
> 
> Well that's all for me   
Oh right! Comments and opinions are always welcomed ^v^!
> 
> PS: if you notice any typo, PLEASE TELL ME ! Thanks!


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the second part of the previous chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning: racism, fluff.
> 
> Haha! my warnings are so contradicting... 
> 
> Anyway, here's the second part of the fighting, it's a little shorter chapter.
> 
> Enjoy! ;)

After their altercation, Steve knew that something was definitely wrong. They have had disagreements in the past, but it was the first time it had been so intense. In addition to it all, they hadn't talked to each other for days.

Nélé was actively ignoring him. When Steve shouted at her to leave him alone and to stop concerning herself with it hurt her deeply. She had wanted to scream to him that it was because she loved, no, liked him so much that she was so worried about him.   
Nélé had seen his movies often enough to know how much that guy liked fighting his way out of problems and seeing him damage himself like this hurt her too.   
But when he spat these words at her, something snapped inside of her for the second time that evening. Nélé felt anger flow inside of her like she hadn't in a long time. Steve wanted to be left alone, he was gonna get what he wanted.

At first, she thought about going to the barbershop and stay there for a few days, but Nélé didn't want to bother her friends over something so silly. So she just stayed in her room most as soon she got home. Every single day. 

Two weeks had passed, and they still weren't talking to each other, pride stubbornly keeping itself at the centre of their problem.

Of course, in the beginning, Steve was as angry as she was so when Nélé didn't acknowledge he did the same, but a few days after their fight they would still wind up speaking to each other. When a week passed, and the young man tried to brush it off, but it's been two weeks now, yet Nélé still wouldn't utter a single word to him.

It was starting to eat away at him. The sandy blond man was beginning to think that maybe he should be the one to make the first move and apologise to her, but a part of him was against the idea, he hadn't done anything wrong, he may have gotten into a fight or two, but it was never for no reason. And did try to avoid them, the other party just wouldn't listen, that wasn't his fault.  
But what if she was finally done with him and for good this time?   
Would she try to leave him and move out? After all, she was spending more and more time out of the house... or maybe it was for the best. He tried to convince himself with that, but just thought of it caused a jab of pain in the chest. He needed to talk to her, eventually.

Nélé was annoyed and tired. Well, she was mostly annoyed at herself, but she mostly felt tired. Her first fit of anger had long disappeared, but then, she was just too stubborn to go and apologise first. I mean, there was nothing wrong with being worried about the person you like, right? Especially when they always got hurt. Whenever she'd hit herself somewhere, he wouldn't hesitate to go and check on her even when she told him was nothing, but when he gets home in blood she's being too much for worrying about him? That's bullshit.  
Just thinking about it again annoyed her, all over again.

And unfortunately, it showed on her attitude, she had become quieter, was lost in her thoughts most of the time, and displayed a moodier attitude, and she was becoming less and less patient. They had told her friends she had been caught in an argument with Steve and that it'd pass, but it didn't. She couldn't stand their current situation.  
At work, Nélé was starting to be less efficient too, she'd make silly, unhabitual mistakes, and had lost her natural cheerfulness, so when a racist client was shouting at her for some petty reasons, she could feel her patience slipping faster than usual.

The fool was in the middle of making a scene, when Nélé rubbed the corner of her clenched eyes, breathing an exasperated sight.

"Are you done, sir? If you don't like your how your meat was cooked, I can take it back to the kitchen and come back with one that will fit your liking more, there's no need to make such a ruckus for it." Nélé annoyingly replied, trying to remain as polite as possible.

The man gasped apparently appalled by her behaviour and words.  
"HOW DARE YOU TALK TO ME LIKE THAT, YOU FILTHY NERGO WHORE!" he finished striking a powerful backhanded slap on her cheek making her lose her balance and fall on her knees.  
She thought she had been humiliated enough when she felt a cold liquid pouring over her heard. 

"That's all the people of your kind deserve! You need to remember where your place is!" he spitefully insulted Nélé, before getting himself escorted out of the dinner by his friend who was scared by what the chief who was dangerously coming their way.

Nélé remained on the floor, emotionless and a hand on her cheek. A deafening silence reigned for a second before the room broke into a wave of murmurs coming from the witness. Bill, helped Nélé to her feet, as Sandra and Betty rushed to help her out of this madness. They seated Nélé on the bench of the locker room, and Betty brought a pack of ice at the sight of Nélé cheek that had tripled in volume due to her skin condition.   
The African woman tried to reassure her coworkers that she was fine and that her skin always overacted, explaining why her cheek looked much worse than what actually it was, but they weren't listening.

Betty was crying in panic in Nélé's stead and, Sandra was concerned by the fact that Nélé was barely reacting, it didn't match her personality at all.   
Nélé let out a bitter laugh assuring her she was just simply tired and that she'd be alright after she'd rest for a bit.

She had finished wiping the wine off her face and her curling hair when the three heard a knock from the door. After making sure that she was decent, Sandra stood to open the door to reveal Bill standing, with his perpetual scowl on his face. Sandra stepped aside to let him walk inside and stand in front of Nélé in silence.

Now, Nélé was getting nervous, she had been rude to a customer, cause a scene, and was probably interrupting the service, her boss would have enough reasons to fire her on the spot.

"Sandra and Betty go back to work, 'customers are waiting. Nélé, go home, you don't need to come back tomorrow."   
Seeing Nélé lowering her head dejectedly, he sighed at his unintentional harshness. "You've been looking tired for the past few days, go home get some rest, and come back when you're better... I'm sorry for what happened earlier. " The chief grumbled, turning his back to return to the kitchens.  
The other waitresses gave their friend a last encouraging hug each before following their boss and going back work.

Nélé stayed still in the locker room for a few minutes before she stood and started to change. Once she was back in her original clothes, she grabbed a ribbon from the table and tried to pull her hair into what somewhat looked like a ponytail.   
As she looked at the mirror to do her hair, Nélé flinched at the sight of her face. That man sure didn't hold back when he hit her. Half of her face had swollen the shape of his hand being almost traceable.  
The woman walked home in silence, as her mind wandered emptily, feeling too tired to think.

She arrived at the front of the door of the flat and groaned realising that she had forgotten the keys, Nélé knocked, hoping that Steve had gotten back from work already.

Thankfully, he had and was shocked when he lifted his face to meet with Nélé's swollen one.  
Steve, immediately assailed her with questions, but Nélé just tired dismissed them and hurried inside her room, leaving him all frustrated and worried.

That was it, for the first time, the two of them were finally able to be in the other's shoes.   
Nélé was feeling physically and emotionally exhausted. It's not that she still wanted to continue her petty feud with Steve, she was just too tired for all of his questions and could deal with them at the moment, plus she wasn't really wounded, the swelling would disappear in a few hours max, there was nothing to worry about.  
The tired woman let out a noise of annoyance while lying in her bed, that must have been how Steve must have felt for the past few weeks. How could she expect Steve to talk down every and each of his problems when she could do the same, and she was his mom, nor his girlfriend, he didn't have to justify himself to her, and she had been annoying him for weeks!   
Damn it Nélé! 

Steve, him, was pacing back and fro in the living room, Nélé was hurt, didn't know what happened to her, and he couldn't do anything for her since she locked herself in the bedroom. He wanted to get in there and get proper answers to his questions, but Steve was well placed to know that in times like these, it was best to be left alone, no matter how frustrating it was. Seeing her in this state this ripped him apart, he only got a glimpse at her as she skipped through the room, but her face wasn't the only thing that got him concerned, her eyes looked deprived of her usual liveliness, and it did look good, he wished she was at least talk to him, the silence only made him assume the worst.   
God, was this how she felt for the past few weeks? 

Steve silently waited in the living room for half an hour in hopes that Nélé would eventually show herself, but she didn't.   
Wanting to check if she was asleep, he hesitantly knocked on her door and was relieved to perceive a barely audible "come in" from Nélé.   
The woman was sprawled out over the mattress, with only half of her face visible, as it was buried in her pillow, the arms loosely hanging out of the bed.  
From her point of view, Nélé could see Steve, tentatively making a few steps towards her. The brunette sent him a weak inviting smile and managed to pat a spot next to her, urging him to come over and sit. While she lazily rested her eyes closed, Nélé smiled as she sensed her friend's weight pressing on next to her. She also sighed in contentment when she felt his cold and rough hand softly caressing her now less throbbing cheek.

Steve was relieved to see that her face looked less swollen than earlier, and was happy to see that didn't push away from his touch, it meant that she was at least angry at him right.   
He continued to gently stroke her face as they both remained in silence, it gave him the chance to take in Nélé's features properly.   
Somehow, her face looked a little paler, her closed eyes both wore dark circles underneath that matched his own.   
She looked just as tired as he felt. Maybe it was the reason behind all this mess. After all, they had to work overtime for a whole week, just to catch up with all the missed work for when he got sick and then, both of their work had gotten busier. Having no time to rest properly, and must have let it all overtake them, which only led them to get crankier by the days.  
They didn't really mean to fight, it's that sometimes tiredness talks over your words.

"You know..." Nélé slurred through her shut eyes, surprising Steve who thought that she had fallen asleep.   
"I hate apologising. It's probably one of my worst flaws." She pouted before continuing to talk like a drunk old man.  
Steve listened to her, smiling when he put her hand over his, knowing where this conversation was going.

"Don't get me wrong, I don't mind saying sorry when I do something wrong, hell, my dad says I apologise way too much. But when I get into a fight with people, and I let stubbornness get the best of me, I can ignore people for a very long time. It's not that I'm still mad at them or anything, I just that the more time passed, the less I have the gut to do it. I just let guilt and pride take over me, and wait for the over the person to talk to me first. And if I crack, then I'll probably just go ahead and start talking to you as if nothing happened."

"A bit like what you're doing right now?" Steve teased, hopeful that he was right.

"Exactly like right now." She smiled, finally looking at her lovely blonded-hair friend.

"That means I'll have to do the apology part, then. I'm sorry Nél, I let the fact that I was tired get the best of me, and didn't take your feelings into considerations. When I saw you at the door earlier today, I got to be in your shoes, and I have no idea how you were able to keep up with me being like this for weeks. I should have tried to respect my promise to you better. I guess... I just wanted to prove something to myself... I'm sorry." Steve earnestly apologised, glad that their feud was finally coming to an end.

"I'm sorry for being an asshole to you too, Wonders. You did not deserve it." she lazily but sincerely smiled at him.

"So...We're good?" he inquired.

"'We are tired, but we're good." nélé replied, closing her eyes once more and a sleepy grin of her chocolate face.

"I'm... gonna let you rest then..." Steve made a move to stand up and leave but gasped in surprised as Nélé forcibly pull on his arm, making Steve fall on the empty space she created for him on the bed. She then casually rested her and arm over his chest.

"I sais WE are tired, Wonders, not just me. So, let's make up for our missed "hanging out together" time, and sleep at the same time."

"As you wish ma'am." steve chuckled embracing her with his free arm.

The two of them fell asleep cuddling onto the other being finally able to rest properly for the first time in a while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter I'm setting theses two dorks together no matter what.
> 
> Thanks for reading.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone and happy new year!  
I wish you all health and happiness, may this year be a fortunate one to you.  
First of all, I apologise for disappearing like that. I got caught up in other projects I was and am still currently working on, like my art Instagram account (Feel free to check it out https://www.instagram.com/thenohls/). And school (with my final which literally ended the eve of Christmas).   
But now I am back, and I'll try to be as consistent as a girl can be!   
Thanks, and enjoy!   
;)

CH14:  
In the early days of November 1940, the autumn weather was subtlety withering, letting the winter take its place.   
The sun was already long gone, as the moonlight lightened the streets of Brooklyn. It was around 8 pm when Nélé left the diner to return home. She shivered and buried her cheeks in her knitted scarf as an ice-cold breeze ran through her.

Nélé got home as quickly as possible, running away from the growing cold weather. The woman moaned in relief as the heat coming off the flat clashed against her frozen face.

She loudly greeted Steve while removing her shoes at the entrance of the apartment, guessing that the blond had barely heard her call judging from the mumbled and delayed answer.  
And she was right. Steve was sitting in the living room, legs crossed a blanket covering his narrow shoulders not far away from the heating pole. The young man was totally absorbed into whatever he was sketching with so much concentration that, only his body twitched to the sound of Nélé's voice.

Feeling a grin stretching its way across her face, the french woman snuggled her way under the covers next to him.   
Nélé's weight and still cold body temperature reached through the poor artist's sleeved arm, forcing Steve to withdraw his attention from his drawing for a brief moment.  
It was just long enough for the man to leave a feather kiss on top of her head, and ask her about her day.

Nélé happily obliged and started rambling about everything that had happened to her during the day.   
She was well aware that half of what she was talking about would fly over his head, but she didn't really care.  
Eventually, the woman momentarily left Steve's side, only to be back in pyjamas and her own sketchbook.

It was how the pair had been spending all of their evenings recently, and everything about it seemed to be perfect. Well, it was supposed to be.   
But something had changed. Though at first glance, everything looked the same, there was still an odd, strange feeling looming over the two whenever Steve and Nélé were spending time alone with each other. So yeah, something had changed indeed. However, it was not really how they spent their time together that was different, but the sudden growth of their physical interaction that was surprising them.

Nélé, who always swore that she wasn't a physical person, felt like a complete fraud whenever she was near Steve. Not that he would complain about it. Shes was never able to pull away from the little, gentle touches he'd give her here and there.  
She couldn't help but feel warm at his dorkiness and totally melted under his shy and occasional kisses.

She usually likes to keep her distance from people, at the least on a physical level.  
And Nélé and Steve were still in this ambiguous relationship where there was clearly more than just friendship going on between them.  
But Steve had told her he wasn't ready for more even if wanted to, and she respected that. So she had to put limits for herself too.   
Lately, Steve seemed to be more and more daring and comfortable towards her. She was happy that he was finally starting to be like this because it raised her hopes up, maybe he was beginning to be ready for more.  
She also had to contain herself because if he wasn't, then she would be in for a pretty nasty fall.

On the other end, Steve was indeed starting to be more confident around Nélé. He could feel himself getting comfortable with Nélé in ways he would never have dared to dream of being with any other women.   
It was funny because when he met Nélé, the man was actually quite suspicious of Nélé's intentions.   
In the beginning, Nélé would flirt with the boy a lot to tease him and be funny, because he was so easily flustered. With time, Steve had slowly gotten used to her advances, he had learned to take them light-heartedly and responded to them too. Little by little, he'd even be the one to start the flirting, Steve thought that he finally was able to get somewhat of the confidence that he had lost when it came with women.

With the time, Steve realised he had developed feelings that were way deeper than those you'd arbour towards a friend.  
He didn't say anything about them, though.   
Because, for one, Steve wasn't sure if what he was experiencing was just him getting drunk on all the attention and caring that Nélé was drowning him into.   
Was he really so naive to let himself crush on a girl so quickly?  
Plus women had never even bothered to pay him any attention in this kind of way before. He was a small, skinny, awkward guy, there was no reason for Nélé to be different and look at him in such a way.

But she did see him that way, so when she admitted to it, Steve was as happy as was panicked.  
All of his building self-confidence had crumbled into insecurities, and Steve found himself unable to return her feelings properly. When he delivered his thoughts to her, Steve was expecting Nélé to take it the wrong way and be upset about it.

And to his surprise and relief, she didn't. Nélé respected his choice to no go any further and kindly accepted his feelings.   
However, she still refused to give up on him asked if she could wait until he'd be ready for more, and it baffled him.

Sometime, Steve couldn't help but think that fate had sent Nélé in the past just so they could meet. (He couldn't be so close to the truth ;) )

It's been months since all of it had happened. And as time passed, Steve and Nélé ended up getting only closer and closer to each other, their feeling only growing stronger one for another.   
Time had passed, and as they went through their ups and downs, Steven knew that he was now ready for more in their relationship.  
He didn't when exactly started to feel ready for it, but Steve knew that he no longer wanted to be just a friend to her. 

He wanted to have Nélé as more than a friend, and he could no longer deny it.

Steve wanted to ask Nélé out, and he was gonna do it.  
All he needed was a little bit of courage, and the end of the week was going to be the perfect moment for him to do it.  
Steve had decided that he was going to ask Nélé to be his girlfriend on the Friday of the week before Thanksgiving, and he had prepared everything. 

In his head.

For the occasion, Steve planned to organise a little party just for the two of them.   
At first, the blond thought about taking her out or somewhere special, but all their most intimate moments had happened while they were at home, so it'd be more meaningful for them there.

He'd start by making them some food, bake his mom's special apple pie, get himself some wine for the spirit. He'd also buy her some flowers, and they'd dance to the radio until they'd get tired, then he would tell her.   
Simple right?

Steve knew it was nothing big, but he also knew that Steve knew that Nélé liked simple things, and he didn't want to freak her out by doing too much.   
Since he usually finished work at 4pm and Nélé around 7, it would leave him plenty of time to make his plan action.

When the said Friday arrived, Steve was pretty confident that everything was going to turn out great. 

On his way home from work, Steve made a small detour to buy the wine and flowers. He also passed by the barbershop to ask Faith some tips for the food he was going to cook.   
When the staff understood what was about happen, everyone cheered in happiness.   
The girls at the shop were delighted to hear that he was finally going to ask Nélé out.  
The boys, on the other side, couldn't stop teasing him for it and said talked about proud they were that their little Stevie was finally going to be "a man".

Heck, the old Jeffrey even insisted on grooming his hair!

As soon as Steve got home, he immediately got to work and started with the cooking. He still settled for something simple so that the oven would be free for the pie.

Steve then cleaned the apartment so everything would be spotless and got changed and waited.   
By the time he was done preparing everything, it was a little after seven and a half.  
That was a good thing because it meant that Nélé would be home soon, and it wouldn't leave him time to get the jitters as he'd be waiting.   
Okay, maybe just a bit...

Thankfully, the sound of the keys ruffling distracted him as he jumped out of his seat to go welcome the girl of his dreams.

"Wow, it smells good in here!" Nélé noted as she joyfully entered the apartment.  
"Oh my, and look at you! You're all dolled up! Did something good happen? " Nélé marvelled in joy and curiosity.

Steve bashfully rubbed the back of his neck and blushed a response as helped Nélé out of her shoes and further inside the place.  
"Well, I just realised I never took you dancing, so, since you've never been to a dancing club of our time before, I figured that we could start by having our own little party here?"

He nervously walked her in the neatly decorated living room, and  
Nélé gawked in aw at the view.

The sofas and coffee table were pushed more against the walls of the room, so there was enough vacant space in the room for them to be able to move around freely.  
On the said table, several plates of small dishes had been put on display, along with some wine.  
There was a pie as well!  
Nélé swirled around in the room in all giddiness. She looked like a child in a candy store, her eyes were shining stars, and she was barely able to contain her excitement.

"Is this a date? I mean, is it okay for me count this as a date?" Nélé asked full hope biting her lower lip to prevent herself from grinning.

"Y-yeah... It is... If you want it to be one, I mean-" Steve timidly replied, a red flush creeping on his ears and back of his neck.  
The golden-haired man didn't even get the time to lift his head to look at her that he was tackled in a tight, quick hug.   
Letting out an excited squeal, Nélé disappeared to her room, claiming that she needed to be in a more appropriate outfit for the occasion and leaving him with a peck on his cheek.

Once again, Steve waited for the woman to show up, letting confidence swelling up in him from the way she had so positively reacted.  
He waited for a little while, his foot tapping to the beat of a   
jazzy love song on the radio, eyes closed and a dumb smile on his face, almost humming to the song, when the sandy blond locks heard the sound of a throat being cleared.

Steve jolted his eyes open and stood up in aw at the sight of the girl, she didn't stay in her room but was still a transform herself wonderfully.

Nélé was out of her usual plain daytime dress and wore a beautifully coloured Grable tea dress that ended a little above her knees.   
Her face was also adorned with some smooth light makeup, that contrasted well with the rest of her look, it only made her gaze more intense and her coloured lips even more plum and inviting. 

"I look swell, don't I ?" Nélé dramatically batted her lashes over her shoulder in a seductive but playful manner.  
She was expecting Steve to play along, but his response was so sincere it made her biting back a smile as she could feel her face grow warm.

"You look beautiful, Nélé." Steve breathed, taking in both of her hands,"...dashingly beautiful..."

"Now, stop it, you're makin' a girl blush!" Nélé gushed in half fake embarrassment swatting his chest lightly.  
"So, what's the plan big guy?"

Steve chuckled at her ridiculous attempt to imitate the Brooklyn accent, "did you just try to make a Brooklyn accent?" he teased lifting an eyebrow.

"Well, hum, yeah? I was trying..." the woman huffed, now totally embarrassed by her failed attempt, so she quickly tried to switch the subject, "but it sounds like I failed so let's move on, what's the plan for tonight?" The African woman repeated in the hope that he would gloss other her embarrassing moment.

" Aw, I thought it was cute, anyway how about we start with-" Steve got cut off by the sound of Nélé's stomach gurgling, "how 'bout we start by getting you something to eat first?" Steve comment clearly amused by her body's sudden manifestation.

Nélé groaned resting her forehead on the blond's shoulder, " in my defence, I haven't eaten anything since lunch, so don't make fun me."

"Alright, alright doll. Let's get ya something to eat first, and then, if the missus ain't too tired, I'll try to show you how we swing in New York."

So they did.  
The two comfortably ate their food while sitting on the floor, talking about everything and anything.  
Then, after getting tired from "digesting" (doing nothing while sitting on the carpet), Steve and Nélé eventually got up and started dancing to the lively jazzy music playing in the background.  
They weren't dancing, but mostly stomping one onto another foot. Nélé was desperately trying to learn the dance, and Steve couldn't dance to save a life but at least, the room was filled with   
joy and excessive laughter.

Then, the "friendly" couple took another break, so Steve could rest for a bit.   
At least that was the excuse Nélé spouted so she could get a bite of that apple pie that has been shooting her sweet looks whenever her eyes landed on it.

Steve and Nélé were back on the floor, the pie mostly finished, and was talking about silly things, when "Only forever" from Bing Crossby started tuning in the background.

Suddenly feeling romantic from the song, Nélé started to sing along. She tried to excuse her sudden reaction by telling Steve that she had been hearing the song often at work as she was feeling shy under the man's intense gaze, but Steve didn't say anything. 

Instead, the man stood up and wordlessly offered Nélé to dance with him, by extending his hand towards her.   
She sweetly accepted, ignoring her quickened heartbeat.

They danced slowly to the rhythm of the song, their bodies being much closer than in previous dances, and the playful atmosphere had subdued into a much more intimate one. 

Steve's hand had moved onto her hips, whereas hers found a home at the back of his neck. Nélé was no longer singing the song but was barely whispering the melody as her eyes were fluttered in a lento tempo.

The music reached its end, but neither of them made a move to separate from each other.

Their eyes were locked on each other's, their chest rising up and down in perfect sync.   
No words were spoken yet, it was like everything screaming for them.

Losing himself in her gaze, Steve unconsciously started leaning towards Nélé as he remembered why he had organised all of this for in the first place.

He feverishly rested his hand on Nélé's cheek and bit the inside of his lip when she melted into his touch.

"Nél, there's something I need to tell you."

"yes?" The ebony woman dreamily replied, slowly giving in her urge to cast her lips upon his.

As their mouths were millimetres apart, Steve gulped, he had to express his feelings to Nélé before anything happened.  
It was a now or never moment.  
"I lo-"  
*Bang! Bang! Bang!*

Someone loudly banged on the door, making the "oh so close to becoming a couple" couple, jolt apart in panic.

Steve motioned for Nélé to remain in the living hidden from the view as he'd go open the door.  
Steve's fist clenched as he carefully walked toward the front door feeling the frustration grown in his chest.

It was late, who the hell could be suddenly deciding to visit on a Friday night, hence why a part of him was still warry of who could be behind that door.

He took a deep breath to get control of his emotions, but the sight of the person standing behind the now slightly opened door made him entirely speechless.  
Emotions rushed and battled to appear on Steve's dumbfounded face. His mouth opened and closed a couple of time, breathing out soundless noises.

"Well, aren't you gonna let me in buddy?"

Steve opened the door further enough to let the man enter, but got caught in a tight, strong hug by his best friend.

"Suprise! 'Didn't think I'd let spend Thanksgiving on your own did ya?"

"Bucky..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AH! You thought they were finally get together in this chapter huh?  
Well, so did I....  
I am utterly and profoundly sorry I couldn't resist the opportunity. Next chapter is gonna be the one I promise...?  
Please don't hesitate to tell me if you notice any typos.


	15. Autor's note

Hi, huh, it's been a pretty long while since the last time I've been active here. I hope all of you are doing well.  
So, I'm here to make some little announcements here.

Don't worry, I am not giving up on the story, but I do have the intention to rewrite it. Though most of the plot remains the same, I read the chapters over and most of it just felt somehow odd and the writing kinda stiff to me, so I've decided to redo it. I want to try and make my characters and their development more natural.

I also would like to tell you that I love to draw and it's something that I do a LOT, so I thought it would be interesting to take a different approach and to add illustrations to the story.  
However, I don't really want to force my drawings on you guys, so I'll probably post an illustrated version of the story on my Tumblr that will be linked at the end or beginning of each new chapter.(but if you want to see it here, ill gladly post them here too! ;) )  
Hopefully this time I'll be more consistent.

I'll notify you guys when I'll have more informations to share with you all. In the mean time, I hope you have a wonderful moment, day or night, depending on when you will be reading this.

Thank you for all of the support and encouragement you have sent to me up until now.

Love you all. See you soon!


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